THE 

Search After Truth 



A BOOK OF SERMONS 
AND ADDRESSES 

BY 

CHARLES WILLIAM PEARSON 

AUTHOR OF 
"THE CARPENTER PROPHET" 
"LITERARY AND B 10 GRAPHICAL ESSAYS" 
"A THREEFOLD CORD" 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
190 8 



■ P7 S t 



U8RARY of CONGREwSS: 
lwo Oooies Kecuiveci 

JUN 24 1908 

CLASS ^ XXc, Nu 



Copyright. 1908 
SHERMAN, FRENCH 6- COMPANY 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Greeks Seek After Wisdom 1 

The Being and Character of God 14 

Prayer • 27 

The World We Live In .43 

The Importance of the Study of the Bible . . 61 

Time, Death, Eternity 74 

The Proper Attitude of the Church Toward 

the Theatre 89 

The Uses of Adversity 102 

Redeeming the Time 117 

The Message of God 134 

Thy Kingdom Come 149 

Praise 160 

Persecution 173 

Creation . 196 

The Final Authority in Religion 211 

Progress 224 

The Psalms 237 

The Character and Work of Jesus .... 252 

Faith Versus Fatalism 264 

Seven Voices of God 277 

Blessed are the Peacemakers 290 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 



The Greeks were the supreme artists, poets and 
philosophers of antiquity. They developed beauty in 
every form in which beauty can exist. They lived in 
a climate and conditions favorable to physical develop- 
ment, and carefully disciplined the human body in 
grace, speed and strength. The youth were thor- 
oughly trained in every form of athletics and their 
ambitions stimulated by great rewards and honors. 
There probably never was in the history of the world 
a nation in which so large a proportion of the people 
were beautiful in form and feature as the men and 
women of Athens when Athenian civilization was at 
the zenith. The Greeks were the models for those 
statues of Zeus, Hercules, and Apollo, of Hera, 
Aphrodite and the Graces, which have never been sur- 
passed and indeed only in rare epochs and instances 
have been rivaled. 

But the Greek perfection of physical form was only 
a sort of natural sacrament, an outward and visible 
sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The Greek 
mind was as wonderful as the Greek body. The simp- 
lest and the most undeniable proof of it is the Greek 
language, the most perfect instrument of oratory and 
poetry, of science and philosophy the world ever 
saw. No harshness, no irregularity, no ambiguity in 
that perfect tongue. Phonetic spelling, euphonious 
sound, clear and precise meaning characterize the Greek 
word and sentence. The very form of the Greek let- 
ters is an index of the beauty of the language. 

Every material object, every act, every thought and 



2 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 



feeling must have a name, therefore by examining the 
words of any language, the scholar can obtain a fairly 
accurate knowledge of the history of the people who 
speak it. Applying this test to the English diction- 
ary, it soon becomes evident that in the fine arts, in 
poetry, oratory, science and philosophy, we are still 
building upon foundations laid by the Greeks. 

Every child begins the study of Greek when it 
learns the word alphabet ; he is learning Greek when he 
divides words and calls the parts syllables; he is pur- 
suing the study of Greek when he learns the words 
poetry, epic, dramatic and lyric. When the older 
student advances to the more technical discussions of 
metre and prosody, of strophe and antistrophe, of 
metaphor, allegory, hyperbole, he discusses Greek art 
in a Greek vocabulary. When we go to the theatre, it 
is to a place designated by a Greek name and to see a 
drama, divided into acts and scenes, all of which are 
Greek words. It is the same with every other depart- 
ment of education. The words arithmetic, geometry, 
problem and mathematics are Greek words. If we 
would describe the earth we must do it in the Greek 
words geography, geology, biology and zoology. If 
we go to the arctic or anarctic circle, or to the antip- 
odes, to whatever climate or whatever zone we may go, 
it is a Greek word that designates our position. 

We draw upon the Greek language when we speak of 
political economy and protest against monopoly, when 
we name a telegraph, when we photograph a face or 
stereotype a book. We ascertain the degrees of heat 
and cold by a Greek thermometer and the weight of 
the atmosphere by a Greek barometer. The diseases 
of catarrh and rheumatism, pneumonia, epilepsy and 
paralysis, were diagnosed by the Greeks and they too 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 3 

were the first to give the world the sciences of anatomy, 
physiology and hygiene. It is from the Greek that 
we get the words physician, surgeon, clinic, allopathy, 
homeopathy and eclectic. 

The Greeks studied the forms of government among 
men and the words monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, 
oligarchy, and anarchy testify to the acuteness of their 
discrimination. To enumerate all the scientific words 
derived f rom the Greek would be tedious ; the above 
list is ample evidence of the accuracy and felicity of 
Saint Paul's description of Greek civilization when he 
said, The Greeks seek after wisdom! 

It was a wonderfully dramatic episode in the life 
of the great missionary to the Gentiles when he stood 
on the Areopagus amid all the splendors of Athenian 
architecture and sculpture, and preached Christ to an 
audience of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who had 
never heard the parables or beatitudes or the tragic 
story of the crucifixion or the sublime doctrine of the 
resurrection. These polished and learned Greeks who 
spoke of all foreigners as barbarians, little thought in 
their self-sufficiency and conceit that the Jew of small 
stature and plain clothing, the man who described him- 
self as one whose bodily presence was weak and speech 
contemptible, whom they spoke of as " babbler," was 
bearing to the world a doctrine immeasurably deeper, 
truer, more comprehensive and more inspiring than any 
of the philosophies of which they were so proud. 

The Epicureans and the Stoics ! Let us glance for a 
moment at their history and their doctrines. In Samos, 
one of those Isles of Greece which Byron celebrates in 
the words : 

" The Isles of Greece ! The Isles of Greece ! 
Where burning Sappho loved and sung 



4 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 



Where grew the arts of war and peace, 
Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung." 

Epicurus the philosopher was born 341 years before 
Christ. His father was a schoolmaster and he adopted 
the same profession. He prepared himself by long 
study and did not begin to teach till he had reached 
his thirty-second year. He opened a school at Mitylene 
and subsequently at Lampsacus, and after five years of 
experience in these less important cities, he established 
himself in Athens in a building surrounded by a spa- 
cious and ornamental garden. The distinctive and 
emphatic doctrine of Epicurus is that pleasure is not 
only a legitimate object of pursuit but our highest 
good, the very end and aim of life. Epicurus states 
his conception of pleasure in these words : " When we 
say that pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the 
pleasures of the debauchee or sensualist, as some from 
ignorance or from malignity represent, but freedom 
of the body from pain and of the soul from anxiety." 
As a means of securing this healthy condition of body 
and this joyous state of mind on which true pleasure 
depends, Epicurus enjoined the strictest temperance in 
eating and drinking, simplicity in dress and housekeep- 
ing, the avoidance of all extravagant ambitions and in- 
ordinate desires, and especially urged men to cease from 
fretfulness and worry. The Apostle Paul is giving 
good advice precisely after the manner of Epicurus 
when he writes to the Romans, " Mind not high things, 
but condescend to men of low estate," and when he 
writes to the Philippians, " Let your moderation be 
known unto all men." President De Witt Hyde of 
Bowdoin, who has published a most attractive study of 
some of the leading Greek philosophers under the title 
" From Epicurus to Christ," a book to which I am 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 5 

largely indebted for both fact and inspiration in the 
present discourse, is my authority for the statement, 
" The sayings of Epicurus were so highly esteemed 
that his disciples committed them to memory as sacred 
and verbally inspired." Students came to him in 
great numbers from all parts of Greece, attracted as 
much by the amiability and benevolence of his char- 
acter as by the extent of his learning and the force 
of his intellect. His fame spread abroad. Lucretius 
embodied his doctrines in a great philosophical poem 
in which he addresses Epicurus as follows: " Glory of 
the Greek race, I follow thee and plant my footsteps 
firmly in thy imprints — -Thou, father, art discov- 
erer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly pre- 
cepts, and as bees sip of all things in the flowery 
lawns, we, O glorious being, in like manner feed from 
out thy pages upon all the golden maxims worthy of 
endless life." And in the polished poetry of Horace, 
which of all the literature of Rome is most prized and 
enjoyed by the lover of dainty epigram and easy 
good-natured worldly wisdom, the maxims of Epi- 
curus may be said to have the immortality of which 
Lucretius thought them worthy. Even in our own 
day Epicurus has disciples and exponents among phi- 
losophers of high repute, for John Stuart Mill and 
Herbert Spencer profess their allegiance to his sys- 
tem. 

That happiness is the end and aim of life is cer- 
tainly a plausible and defensible statement. Yet the 
doctrine of Epicurus, if not false, is defective, usually 
and almost inevitably tending not to elevate but to 
degrade its votaries. Epicurus preaches selfishness, 
and selfishness however one may seek to refine it, is 
ignoble. An Epicurean is one who gets as much as 



6 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 

possible for himself, and only a man of very enlight- 
ened mind and of very pure and benevolent heart sees 
clearly at all times that in order to get the highest 
possible happiness for himself he must do his ut- 
most to promote the happiness of others. " He that 
loseth his life shall save it " is not an Epicurean 
maxim. The self-indulgent principle of Epicurean- 
ism does not bid one to sacrifice comfort and risk life 
in nursing the sick, does not lead one to give time and 
money in the care of the poor, does not give the 
courage and fortitude that are necessary to the pa- 
triot and the philanthropist, does not even supply 
that stern stuff of which according to Shakespeare 
ambition is made. Epicureanism overvalues the pres- 
ent and undervalues the future good. It unfits men 
for " dignity and high exploit." Tennyson gives us 
a picture of an Epicurean when he says of Geraint 
that he was: 

" Forgetful of his promise to the King, 
Forgetful of his princedom and its cares, 
Forgetful of his glory and his name." 

In his desire to deliver men from the fear of death 
and from anxiety in regard to the future, Epicurus 
taught that the individuality and identity of the soul 
ceased with the dissolution of the body. He says we 
should not concern ourselves at all about death, for 
it is of no consequence to either the dead or the living, 
for " while we live, death does not exist, and when we 
are dead, we do not exist." 

In the presence of such a philosophical theory, ex- 
hortations to virtue are very weak. When men are 
told that pleasure is the highest good and that death 
is the extinction of the soul, a few rare men and women 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 7 

may still see that the highest pleasure is to be ob- 
tained from a life of temperance, study, industry and 
benevolence; but the great majority will say, "Let 
us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die." 
The popular verdict upon Epicureanism is given in 
the dictionary. Epicurean has become epicure, and 
an epicure is " a lover of the pleasures of the table, 
one who is devoted to the pampering of his appetites." 
The apostle Paul gives us the condemnation of the 
Epicureans in a phrase when he speaks of them as 
" lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." 
With Oliver Goldsmith let us say: 

" My soul, turn from them, turn we to survey 
Where rougher climes a nobler race display." 

The Stoics, the " men who take fortune's buf- 
fets and rewards with equal thanks," deserve and have 
won a large share of the world's admiration. The 
Stoic philosophy arose as a protest against Epicu- 
reanism. Epicurus said that pleasure is the chief 
end of life, and Zeno in scorn replied that pleasure is 
worthless and disappointing, that outward circum- 
stances are utterly unimportant, and that the only 
noble object of pursuit is the progress of the soul in 
knowledge and in virtue. The Stoic philosophy may 
be summed up in the phrase, " There is nothing either 
good or bad but thinking makes it so." A man may 
be young and healthy and rich, and yet he may be un- 
happy. A man may be old and poor and sick, and 
yet his soul may be full of faith, hope, love, peace 
and joy. There are no external circumstances so good 
as to make a bad man happy. There are no external 
circumstances so bad as to make a good man unhappy. 
The Stoic taught that happiness was to be found in 



8 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 



the soul itself, and that outward conditions were in- 
different. A man should not care, said the Stoic, 
whether he be rich or poor, or sick or well, whether 
he live or die, or whether his family and friends live 
or die. His one concern must be his progress in vir- 
tue and his promotion of virtue in others. We get 
a glimpse of Stoic character in the dialogue in which 
Shakespeare, following Plutarch, tells us how Brutus 
received the news of the death of Portia, the noble 
wife who was as dear to him as the ruddy drops that 
visited his heart. His friend Messala tells him that 
Portia is dead and Brutus answers only : 

" Farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala; 
With meditating that she must die once, 
I have the patience to endure it now — 
* * * 

(Let us) to our work, (we that are yet) alive.'* 

The Stoic philosophy bred a race of laborious, vir- 
tuous, noble and heroic men. Zeno, the founder of 
the sect, is a grand figure. Till his 98th year he con- 
tinued to teach simplicity in living, fortitude in suf- 
fering, and zeal in the pursuit of virtue. During his 
life the Athenians awarded him a crown of gold, and 
at his death, they gave him a public funeral and 
erected a monumental pillar in his honor. 

Cleanthes, when a youth supported himself by 
manuel labor while attending the lectures of Zeno. 
For nineteen years he was a disciple, and at the death 
of Zeno succeeded him as head of the school. His 
many writings are lost except a Hymn to Zeus which 
gives one a very favorable impression of Stoic piety. 
It is too long for complete quotation, but the follow- 
ing extracts will indicate its character : " Almighty 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 9 



Zeus, most glorious of the immortals, we are thy off- 
spring and made in thine image, therefore will I hymn 
thee and sing thy might forever. All the universe 
that circles round the earth obeys thee, . . . nor 
is anything done on the earth without thee, . . . 
save the works that evil men do in their folly . . . 
Scatter this folly, O Father, from their souls, and 
give them to discover the wisdom and justice with 
which thou governest all things, so that they may 
pay thee due honor and hymn thy works continually 
as it beseems a mortal man." 

Chrysippus studied with Cleanthes and became his 
successor. He was a most industrious and voluminous 
writer, but only a few fragments of his works re- 
main. He gave himself exclusively to philosophy, re- 
fusing to seek political office by saying: " If I counsel 
honorably, I shall offend the citizens, if I counsel 
basely, I shall offend the Gods." 

A still greater name in history of the Stoic phi- 
losophy is that of Epictetus, of whom his disciple 
and biographer Arrianus says : " It was evident that 
he had but one aim, to stir the minds of his hearers 
toward the best things ... If his words as I 
report them do not do the same, yet let those who read 
them know this, that when he himself spoke them, it 
was impossible for the hearer to avoid feeling what- 
ever Epictetus desired that he should feel." Saint 
Augustine calls Epictetus the noblest of the Stoics, 
and so highly was he esteemed by the public in the 
early centuries that the writings of this Pagan phi- 
losopher were used in Christian schools as a text-book 
of morality, and it is perhaps largely in consequence 
of this use that so many of them have been preserved. 

Epictetus was frail in body and suffered from a 



10 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 



lameness brought on, it is said, by the cruelty of his 
master in his early days when he was a slave. Yet he 
lived to a venerable age and to the last was earnest 
in his devotion to his Stoic principles. The follow- 
ing is one of his best known utterances, pertaining to 
this period of his life: "What else can I do, an old 
man and lame, than sing hymns to God? If I were a 
nightingale, I would do after the nature of a night- 
ingale ; and if a swan after that of a swan. But now 
I am a reasoning creature, and it behooves me to sing 
the praise of God; this is my task and this I do, nor, 
as long as it is granted me, will I abandon this post." 

It is impossible to characterize or even name all 
the eminent Stoics. It is sufficient to say that the 
Stoic philosophy passed from Greece to Rome, that it 
gave dignity and worth to the dramas of Seneca and 
to the orations and philosophical disquisitions of 
Cicero, and that in the person of Marcus Aurelius it 
ascended the throne of the Caesars and gave there an 
example of personal morality, benevolence, adminis- 
trative wisdom and justice rarely equalled. 

Yet in spite of these and countless other illustrious 
examples of virtue produced by it, the Stoic philoso- 
phy is not the world's highest ideal. The virtues the 
Stoics tried so hard to inculcate are wisdom, justice, 
temperance and fortitude, all very great, desirable and 
noble elements of character. But in the nature of 
things every system must in the last analysis be re- 
solvable into one principle, and as the one principle 
of Epicureanism is pleasure, as the one principle of 
Christianity is love, so the one principle of Stoicism 
is fortitude. 

The voice of the people is said to be the voice of 
God, and this unerring voice of the people has said of 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 11 



the Stoic not that he is wise, just or temperate, but 
that he is resolutely calm, impassive, uncomplaining. 
Thomas Campbell, one of the best of Greek scholars, 
in his poem Gertrude of Wyoming, with the masterly 
brevity of genius, presents the Stoic character when 
he says of an Indian warrior unaffected by a scene of 
suffering and death; 

" As monumental bronze unmoved he stood, 
The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear." 

In this day and age of the world a professed Stoic 
seems a strange anachronism; yet Henley, the friend 
of Robert Louis Stevenson, the biographer of Rob- 
ert Burns, and himself a poet of great technical skill, 
gives us his Stoic creed in these words : 

" Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
Looms but the horror of the shade; 
And yet the menace of the years 
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. 

* * * 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul." 

Brave words! yet most of us in life and death de- 
sire and need some stronger faith, some deeper consola- 
tion. 

Christianity has triumphed over Stoicism because 
it is a religion of love and sympathy, of pity and com- 



12 THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 

passion, of faith and hope. When Jesus said: " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
with all thy mind and with all thy soul and with all 
thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self," when he said through that great interpreter of 
his thought who wrote the fourth gospel, " I am the 
resurrection and the life," he gave the world an ideal 
and a hope infinitely more potent and precious than 
the highest reach of the Stoic philosophy. 

The Apostle Paul was well acquainted with the Stoic 
writings and he praised the Stoic virtues of wisdom, 
justice, temperance and fortitude; but he does not 
account them the greatest elements of personal char- 
acter or the foundations of social life, but instead he 
points us to faith, hope and love as the three abiding 
principles, and of these the greatest is love. 

Paul the Greek scholar and apostle to the Greeks 
passed through trials more prolonged and severe than 
any Stoic philosopher was ever called upon to endure; 
but all his sufferings were only " light afflictions," for 
he bore them not with Stoic fortitude but with Chris- 
tian faith and hope. There is an assurance and tri- 
umph in the apostle's language that no Stoic philoso- 
pher ever reached, as he says : " Who shall separate 
us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or dis- 
tress or persecution, or famine or nakedness or peril 
or sword? Nay in all these things we are more than 
conquerors through him that loved us. For I am per- 
suaded that neither death nor life, nor things present 
nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from 
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

It is well for us in these days of searching, and in 
some respects of destructive, criticism to read the 
lessons of history clearly and to see how and why 



THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM 13 

Christianity has become the dominant faith of the 
world, eclipsing alike the legislation of Moses and the 
art and philosophy of Greece. A brief yet satisfy- 
ing answer is given by that profound student alike 
of Jewish and of Greak learning who writing to a 
Greek church gave the guiding principle of his life 
and teaching in the words : " The Jews require a sign 
and the Greeks seek after Wisdom; but I preach 
Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block and 
unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them who are 
called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God 
and the wisdom of God." 



The being and character of god 



Psalm 104. Psalm 129. 

No man hath seen God at any time, God is an in- 
visible spirit and His existence is only known to us by 
inference and argument. The familiar train of 
reasoning is that every effect must have an adequate 
cause. When we see a bird's nest in a tree, we infer 
at once that a bird made it. When we see a house, we 
have no doubt that it was built by men. When we 
look upon the earth and look upward to the sun and 
stars, we infer that they were made by a being im- 
measurably greater than man. 

The astronomer, Simon Newcomb, former professor 
of mathematics and astronomy in Johns Hopkins uni- 
versity, editor of the American Journal of Mathemat- 
ics, president of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, for twenty-two years direc- 
tor of the Nautical Almanac office, a man who has de- 
voted his life to astronomy, whose discoveries and pub- 
lications on the subject have gained for him the 
highest distinction, as is evidenced by the fact that 
honorary degrees have been conferred upon him by 
six American and ten European universities, is my 
authority for some astounding statements about the 
size of the universe and the number of the stars. The 
sun is nearly 92,000,000 miles distant from the earth, 
but Professor Newcomb asserts that, if a line 400,000 
times that distance were used as a radius and a circle 
drawn with the earth as a center, within that enormous 
sphere there would be included, beside the sun and its 
attendant planets and their satellites, only one of the 

14 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 15 



fixed stars. He says that, according to the most ac- 
curate measurements astronomers can make, if we took 
as a radius a line twice as long as the former, a line 
800,000 times the distance between the earth and the 
sun and drew another great circle, that almost illimit- 
able space would contain only eight of the fixed stars. 
A sphere with a diameter of 70 trillion miles and yet 
only nine stars in it! How much stranger fact is 
than fiction! Shakespeare made Puck say, I'll put a 
girdle around the earth in 40 minutes. We can do 
that now by telegraph. But what of the speed of 
light? The astronomers bewilder us by saying that 
light travels so fast that it would encircle the globe 
seven times in one second, and yet Professor New- 
comb says that it is probable that there are stars so 
far away that it takes their light 6,600 years to reach 
the earth. The sun is a million times the size of the 
earth and there are stars that are a thousand times 
larger than the sun, and these mighty orbs are almost 
infinite in number. Yet by some power each of these 
stars follows its appointed path and though all are 
moving with inconceivable velocity there is no irregu- 
larity or confusion. That all this should be the re- 
sult of blind force seems of all theories the most in- 
credible. 

Milton's Paradise Lost is a very great poem and 
shows in every line evidence of thought and purpose. 
It is in the highest degree improbable that the poem 
had no personal author, but that somehow the type 
happened to gather into lines and columns and by 
chance spread themselves upon leaves and these leaves 
stuck together of their own accord and that accident 
created that wonderful poem. Yet surely it would be 
easier to imagine that the poem wrote itself and just 



16 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



happened into being than to think that this world 
with all its millions of inhabitants and this universe 
with its millions of words had no intelligent Creator. 
Edward Young in a poem of sententious moralizing 
declared : " An undevout astronomer is mad," and a 
psalmist of old uttered his contempt for the atheist in 
the words : " The fool hath said, There is no God." 
A modern man of genius echoes the scorn of the 
psalmist in the following picturesque and musical 
language : 

THE FOOL HATH SAID. 

Psalm XIV 

The dusky deep is set with gems 

That glimmer with a fadeless light, 
With huge and wonderous diadems 

That blaze upon the startled sight 

And glorify the holy night. 
And yet the doubters gravely nod 

And scoff at all the signs of might — 
The fool hath said there is no God. 

The sea is emerald and wide 

And moves with slow and solemn sweep ; 
Resistless is the restless tide 

That comes from out the hidden deep, 

The waves of fury lash and leap, 
And still the critics mope and plod 

Along the shore and blindly creep — 
The fool hath said there is no God. 

The prairies reach in endless green, 
As level as a thrashing floor; 

No shade to mar the brilliant scene, 
With wilding blooms bespangled o'er 
And birds that warble as they soar, 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 17 



At dawn above the dewy sod, 

And still the pessimist once more — 
The fool hath said there is no God. 

The day, the night, the dawn, the dusk, 

The dream, the hope and hearts that yearn, 

The bud, the bloom, the withered husk, 
The rose that falls, the leaves that turn, 
And skies that pale and skies that burn, 

And man himself, is he a clod? 

Nay, such beliefs all men should spurn — 

The fool hath said there is no God. 

Let us go a step further; it seems to me that any 
adequate conception of the power and wisdom of God 
ought to bring with it a corresponding belief in His 
goodness. It is impossible to imagine that infinite 
power should be other than good. It is true that the 
poets have conceived of Satan, an adversary, who is 
both wicked and strong; yet they all represent that 
the power of Satan is ever-dwindling and will finally 
cease. Milton represents the spirit of all the mythol- 
ogies when he makes every new step of Satan in wick- 
edness the cause of corresponding diminution, deteri- 
oration and decay. All biography, all history, all 
poetry, and all science concur in teaching that good- 
ness alone is permanent and strong. 

Equally true is it that goodness is inseparably as- 
sociated with wisdom. In the mathematics of virtue, 
in the high equivalents of ethics, sin is folly and folly 
is sin, virtue is wisdom and wisdom is virtue, and thus 
all the known laws of association and causation seem 
to bring into indissoluble union the power, the wisdom 
and the goodness of God. 

But it may be asked, Is not this comforting gen- 



18 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



eralization contradicted by the stern and indisputa- 
ble facts of life? Is not this a world full of suffer- 
ing? Are not the laws by which we are governed se- 
vere and are they not enforced with relentless and in- 
exorable severity? Do not all physical laws seem in- 
different to moral character? Do not fire and water 
and gravitation act in precisely the same manner upon 
the greatest sinner and the greatest saint? Is not 
death the appointed lot of all alike? 

It is true that death is universal and that suffer- 
ing falls upon the purest and best, upon sinless little 
children, upon self-sacrificing parents, upon saints 
and heroes who are battling for truth and righteous- 
ness ; to the unspiritual and unbelieving it might seem 
as though God were utterly indifferent to us and our 
little concerns. We see that a street car is governed 
by certain laws of motion and that if a little child, 
ignorant of danger, walks thoughtlessly onto the 
track, no supernatural power interferes to arrest the 
car and save the child from injury or death. When 
the wheels are whirling in a factory, if a young girl 
is caught by her skirt or the long braids of her hair, 
the cogs move on with blind, unthinking force and 
crush and mangle the helpless victim. And so the 
world like a great machine seems to grind on with 
monotonous regularity and with utter indifference to 
suffering and death. When a little child is blown by 
a strong wind over the edge of a cliff, and the inex- 
orable law of the earth's attraction acts upon the 
tender body in exactly the same manner as it would 
upon a senseless stone, and the child's delicate frame is 
bruised and broken and its life ended with a sudden 
shock, it is natural to wish that the law were less rigid 
and that in such cases it might be reversed. But carry 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 19 



the reasoning to its logical conclusion. Suppose that 
all the laws of nature were suspended whenever their 
enforcement would injure an innocent child. Imagine 
that fire would not burn it and water would not drown 
it, that cold would not freeze or hunger starve it, that 
no fall would hurt or weight crush it; what would be 
the result? Parents would be negligent, chil- 
dren would remain ignorant, the race would be de- 
humanized and soon become extinct. The world is 
a great school for man, woman and child as long as 
they are in it, and to shut any class of persons at any 
time from the opportunities of education and progress 
would be a far greater cruelty than anything in the 
existing system. The uniformity of law is the only 
foundation for that exact and definite knowledge which 
we call science. The uniformity of law is the only 
basis for the ordinary arts and industries of life. No 
man would till the ground and sow the seed if there 
were no reasonable expectation of a harvest; no man 
would build a house if there were no probabilities that 
its materials would hold together for an hour. The 
uniformity of law is the source of incalculable bles- 
sings; it is the very basis of civilization and progress. 

But it may be asked, Could we not have uniform 
laws less severe in character? Is there not an un- 
necessary amount of labor and sorrow in the world? 
It is an old question. The ancient Lotos Eaters said: 

" All its allotted length of days, 
The flower ripens in its place, 
Ripens and fades and falls and hath no toil — 
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 
things? " 

The Epicureans murmured at the contrast between 
the imagined joys of the gods upon Olympus and the 



20 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



sufferings of men upon earth. The gods, they said, 
recline in their golden houses and drink nectar and 
eat ambrosia and look with serene indifference upon 
the earth with its 

" Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring 
deeps and fiery sands, 
Clanging fights and flaming towns, and sinking ships 
and praying hands." 

But that is the dark and bitter spirit of Paganism 
which the gospel of faith, hope and love is trying to 
banish from the world. Yet men, even very good 
men, still have their moods of doubt and discontent. 
Alexander Pope complained that his life was one long 
disease. Wordsworth felt oppressed by " the burden 
of the unintelligible world." Longfellow wrote in 
youth : 

" My Heart was hot and restless, 
And my life was full of care, 
And the burden laid upon me 

Seemed greater than I could bear." 

It is the universal experience, even of the best and 
wisest, that suffering is a large and persistent factor 
in human life. As in the physical world, so in the 
moral world suffering seems to be as necessary as joy 
in the development of character. Our sufferings seem 
to have a twofold purpose; they deliver us from evil, 
they lead us to good. The best and wisest men in all 
ages have been able to see that suffering so far from 
being an indication of God's cruelty or indifference, 
is an evidence of his love and care. In one of the 
darkest hours of Israel's sufferings, in that book so 
pre-eminently mournful that it bears the name of Lam- 
entations, it is nevertheless written : " The Lord doth 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 21 



not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men." 
The experience of the writer of the 119th psalm is, 
It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I 
might learn thy statutes. The Apostle Paul, one of 
the greatest sufferers who ever lived, saw clearly the 
purpose of suffering and had such a sense of God's 
goodness that he wrote these great words of hope and 
cheer: "I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us." " Our light affliction 
which is but for a moment worketh for us a more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory." Hunger and 
thirst and cold and nakedness, slanders and opposi- 
tions, scourgings and dungeons are all " light af- 
flictions " to Paul, because the grace of God was re- 
vealed unto him and the love of God and man filled his 
heart. So strong was his faith, so deep his joy amid 
all his trials that in his sublime enthusiasm he dared 
to say : " I glory in tribulation, knowing that tribula- 
tion worketh patience, and patience experience, and 
experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed." 
And so He taught men to " pray without ceasing, to 
rejoice evermore and in everything to give thanks, 
for this is the will of God concerning us." 

This is not only the most comforting, it is also the 
most rational view of suffering. " Whom the Lord 
loveth he chasteneth and scour geth every son whom He 
receiveth. No chastening for the present seemeth joy- 
ous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth 
the peaceable fruit of righteousness, unto them which 
are exercised thereby." The Captain of our salva- 
tion was himself made perfect through sufferings, 
and in those precious beatitudes which so wonder- 
fully summarize His teachings there is no benediction 



22 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



more tender and beautiful or more helpful to bur- 
dened and sorrowing humanity than the words : 
"Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be 
comforted." But in the teaching of Jesus concern- 
ing God's fatherhood, his doctrine reaches its most as- 
tonishing height. Jesus taught men to worship God, 
not merely or chiefly as the great Creator, Preserver, 
Ruler and Judge of all men, but as the patient, the 
forgiving, the tender and sympathetic Father in 
heaven. The strongest appeals of Jesus to men to do 
good are made to them as children of God who ought 
to live according to their divine parentage. " Let 
your light shine before men, that they may see your 
good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven 
— > Love our enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
good to them that hate you, and pray for them that 
despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may 
be the children of your Father who is in heaven." 
" Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven 
is perfect." 

What nature Jesus ascribes to God! What des- 
tiny he sets before man! 

Paul took up and expounded the Master's thought. 
In writing to the Romans he said, " The spirit itself 
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the chil- 
dren of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God 
and joint heirs with Christ;" and in that marvelous 
prayer of Paul for the Ephesians he asks that they 
may be filled with all the fullness of God, and lest 
such a prayer should seem to them presumptuous and 
be beyond their faith he reminds them that God is 
" able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we 
ask or think." 

Again Paul exhorts the Philippians to seek perfec- 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 23 



tion in these remarkable words : " Let this mind be in 
you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the 
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
God." Whatever that equality with God may have 
consisted in, Christians are urged to seek it in the 
same way as Jesus did. 

Nor was Paul the only apostle who wrote in this 
high strain. In the first epistle of John we read: 
" Behold what manner of love the Father hath be- 
stowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of 
God. Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know 
that when He shall appear we shall be like him; for 
we shall see Him as He is." 

Of all the imaginations of men these are surely the 
most extraordinary. Can faith grasp them? Can 
reason approve them? Or must they be looked upon 
as wild hyperboles, transcendental visions, foolish and 
fanatical dreams which sober and practical men and 
women should not indulge in or countenance. " Be 
ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Is 
it a rational ambition and hope? 

When we look at ourselves in our ignorance and our 
littleness, our sinfulness and discontent, it certainly 
seems as though nothing could be more presumptu- 
ous and foolish than for man to think of attaining 
power, wisdom, goodness or happiness such as God 
possesses. If there is any ground for hope, it can- 
not be in ourselves, but must be found in the nature of 
God, His relationship to man and His purposes con- 
cerning him. If God is really man's father, if the 
word father is not a loose and extravagant figure of 
speech, but is rightly applied to God in the same sense 
as when used toward an earthly parent, it seems to me 



24 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



to carry with it every other good thing that the 
imagination can conceive, The son of a human father 
is not a creature of unlike kind. He is his father's 
image and second self. He possesses the same orig- 
inal nature as his father, and in course of time, under 
favoring conditions attains the same physical stature, 
and the same intellectual and spiritual development 
If God is our heavenly Father in the strict sense, the 
analogy would lead us to expect the most exact and 
literal fulfillment of all the extraordinary visions and 
hopes expressed in the scriptures. What matter about 
man's present insignificance? The son of the Czar 
of Russia, unable to speak a word or to tell his right 
hand from his left, is by the mere fact of birth heir 
to all that his father is able to give him. Does any- 
one say that the Czar has but one son and that God 
the heavenly Father has millions of human children? 
Very true, but God is infinite and the resources of 
infinity cannot be exhausted. God is able to bring 
every one of His children to inward perfection and 
to surround each one with the conditions of perfect 
happiness. 

Is there any reason to think that God has such 
a purpose? It is certainly unreasonable to think that 
God had no purpose at all in creating man, and it 
is irreverent and wicked to think that He had a friv- 
olous or unworthy purpose. The Scriptures tell us 
that God has infinite power and infinite wisdom, but 
they do not say that God is power or God is wisdom. 
They say that God is just, is merciful, is holy. But 
they do not say that God is justice, is mercy or holi- 
ness. But there is one dearer and higher attribute 
with which they do identify the divine nature. We 
are told that God is love, and that implies that God 



THE CHARACTER OF GOD 25 



is employing all the infinite resources of His nature 
to make all his children happy. What a poor con- 
ception of God it is to think of Him as dwelling in 
solitary, frigid grandeur, surrounded only by humble 
dependents and with no one of like nature with whom 
He may commune and sympathize? Better the old 
Greek polytheism with a dozen social gods feasting 
together on Mount Olympus. Better the narrowest 
Trinitarianism with three persons in the godhead af- 
fording some little outlet for mutual love and sym- 
pathy. But the teaching of Jesus and His apostles 
is something far beyond these. It is that all men 
and women are children of God, that He loves them 
all with a perfect love, and that it is His wish and 
purpose that they should all grow into His likeness 
and share His felicity. " Now are we the children of 
God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." We 
are " heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" to an 
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fad- 
eth not away. It is the wish and purpose of God 
to " do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we 
can ask or think." 

In proportion as these exceeding great and precious 
promises seem real unto us they will influence our 
conduct and mode of life. " Every man that hath 
this hope in him purifieth himself." It is to those 
who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for 
glory and honor and immortality that eternal life 
is promised. Whatever may be God's wish and pur- 
pose, some share of responsibility, suited to our knowl- 
edge and power, rests with us. The highest things 
do not drift to us without personal effort. 

We are to work our own salvation, while God 
works in us to will and to do His good pleasure. If 



26 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 



we are faithful over a few things, He will make us 
rulers over many things, and we shall enter His pres- 
ence where there is fulness of joy and be satisfied 
because we have attained unto His likeness. 



PRAYER 



Plutarch, the famous heathen moralist and philoso- 
pher, who was himself a priest of Apollo, speaks as 
follows of the universality of prayer and worship. 
" If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities 
without walls, without schools and theatres; but a 
city without a temple or that doth not practise wor- 
ship, prayers and the like, no one ever saw." 

The belief in the duty and efficacy of prayer is 
inseparable from the belief in the being and goodness 
of God. If there is an omniscient heavenly Father, 
he certainly hears us when we pray to him, and we 
cannot help thinking that he is not unmoved by our 
petitions, but will grant them if in his infinite wisdom 
he sees that it is best for us and best for all other 
persons that our requests should be complied with. 

The language of Scripture is very strong and very 
explicit in regard to the power of prayer. Jesus 
said to his disciples, " If ye have faith as a grain of 
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Be 
thou removed and be thou cast into the sea; and it 
shall be done; and all things whatsoever ye shall ask 
in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 

The great Spanish orator Castelar, giving a sort 
of paraphrase of this language in a magnificent eu- 
logy of the faith of Columbus, said : " Columbus 
discovered America by faith. If the continent had 
not existed, God would have made it rise from the 
waters to answer to such faith as his." 

There are sceptics who look upon such words as 
27 



28 



PRAYER 



mere oratorical hyperbole, and deny that faith has 
any such power. There have been, on the other hand, 
fanatics who have thought that they had in the prom- 
ises of Jesus a sort of magic spell by which they could 
accomplish greater wonders than those related of the 
lamp of Aladdin or the cap of Fortunatus. Such 
persons making vain and presumptuous requests have 
received no answer, and, as it is natural that the 
pendulum should swing as far to one side as to the 
other, the height of presumption is followed by the 
depth of despair, and a false and superstitious type 
of religion is changed into a coarse and materialistic 
infidelity. Jesus said, " If ye have faith, ye shall be 
able to remove mountains " ; the world's history is full 
of instances of the literal and of the spiritual fulfil- 
ment of the words. Every great highway and rail- 
road cuts down hills and fills up valleys and is a victory 
of some engineer's faith; but the supreme illustrations 
are to be found in more intellectual, moral and re- 
ligious changes which have been made in the face of 
apparently insurmountable difficulties. But all such 
successes have been won by a true and not by spurious 
faith. There are many prayers that are not answered, 
because they are not offered in a right spirit and 
bcause God in his goodness refuses to give us what 
would do us harm. Plato prayed wisely when he 
said; 

" O Zeus, our king, whate'er is good 
Do thou to us vouchsafe ; 
But, when we foolishly ask what is ill, 
Avert it from us and refuse our prayer." 

And Shakespeare expresses the same sentiment when 
he makes a Roman say: 



PRAYER 



29 



" We, ignorant of ourselves. 
Beg often our own harm which the wise powers 
Deny us for our good; so find we profit 
By losing of our prayers." 

In the epistle of James it is written, of the wicked, 
" Ye ask f or grace and receive it not, because ye ask 
amiss that ye may consume it upon your pleasures." 
Jesus says of the Kingdom of Heaven, " Strive to 
enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, 
will seek to enter in, and will not be able." And as 
it is with the Kingdom of God so it is with prayer; it 
is easy to the childlike and the innocent, it is hard to 
the proud, the sinful and the disobedient. There are 
many conditions which must be met before our prayers 
are answered. We cannot with true faith ask God to 
forgive us our sins against him unless we are willing 
to forgive those who have injured or offended us. 
The Lord's prayer says, " Forgive us our trespasses, 
as we also forgive those who trespass against us," and 
in even more explicit and emphatic words Jesus else- 
where tells us, " When ye pray, forgive, if ye have 
aught against any; that your Father who is in 
heaven may also forgive you. But if you do not 
forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven 
forgive you." Moreover, in the nature of the case 
there is no use in asking for the forgiveness of any 
sin unless the sin is repented of and forsaken. All 
prayer, either for pardon or for strength, is insincere 
and useless,, unless it is accompanied by our own efforts. 
As faith without works is dead, being alone, so prayer 
without endeavor is but idle and empty words which 
insult the awful majesty of the Ruler of the Universe 
and grieve his loving and holy spirit. 

Again, all our wisest and purest and most effectual 



30 



PRAYER 



prayers are made in perfect submission to the will 
of God. In the Lord's prayer, we are taught to 
pray, " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," 
and the more fully our minds conceive God's omnipo- 
tent power and infinite wisdom and the more fully our 
hearts trust his fatherly love, the more deeply and 
sincerely we shall endeavor to discover his will con- 
cerning us and the more patiently and even joyfully 
we shall submit to all the dispensations of his prov- 
idence. In the supreme crisis of the life of Jesus, 
when he was face to face with desertion and betrayal 
and death, he prayed in agony of spirit, " Father, if 
it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, 
not as I will but as thou wilt ; 99 and, as he prayed thus, 
his spirit was calmed and strengthened and he was 
enabled to face even the bitter death of the cross and 
suffer as a martyr for his faith rather than in any 
way retract or qualify his message in order to save 
his life. The attention of Christians has been fas- 
tened especially upon the prayer which Jesus taught 
his disciples, upon the prayer in Gethsemane and upon 
the prayer on the cross, " Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do." But it is important 
that all the other prayers of Jesus and all his instruc- 
tions about prayer should be considered. Both from 
the precept and the example of Jesus, we learn that 
we are to ask for spiritual rather than temporal bless- 
ings. Jesus said to his disciples, " If ye, imperfect 
and sinful as you are, give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give his holy spirit to them that ask him ; " and as 
we look at the various records in the gospels of the 
prayers of Jesus, we find, I think, reason to infer 
that he himself prayed only for wisdom and strength 



PRAYER 



SI 



to do the will of God and accomplish the work to 
which he believed himself called. In the first chapter 
of Mark's Gospel, there is an account of the first 
preaching of Jesus. It is said that while he was 
preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum he was 
interrupted by a man with an unclean spirit, a man, 
that is, whose language and gestures were indecent 
and offensive. It was the first external opposition 
that Jesus had met with; it must have given him a 
rude shock and been a severe test to his faith. Most 
speakers interrupted as Jesus was by a clamorous 
madman would have stopped the service, called for 
assistance and had the disturber removed by force. 
But the faith of Jesus in the power of God to heal 
was very great. Believing, in accordance with the 
almost universal opinion of his day, that the man was 
actually controlled by an evil spirit, Jesus commanded 
the devil to be silent and to come out of the man. 
And the command was effective. The man was silenced 
and subdued, and the people were astonished. Jesus 
went from the synagogue to Simon's house and found 
his wife's mother sick. His disciples, impressed by 
the manifestation of the power of Jesus, appealed to 
him in behalf of the suffering woman, and she too was 
helped and strengthened by his touch and word. The 
report of this cure also spread abroad, and as soon 
as the sun set and the Sabbath ended so that they 
could lawfully do so, all the people of the city brought 
their sick to be healed, and the record says that Jesus 
" healed many that were sick of divers diseases and 
cast out many devils." And then it adds, " And in 
the morning, rising up a great while before day, he 
went out and departed into a solitary place and there 
prayed." The two statements belong together. The 



PRAYER 



strange events of that first day of his public ministry 
had so agitated the mind of Jesus that he could not 
sleep. The pale, appealing faces of the sick, and 
their shrunken and distorted figures had so burned 
themselves into his memory that he could still see 
them in the darkness as though they were actually 
present. Their groans and cries still sounded in his 
ears like living voices; therefore leaving the narrow 
and stifling room he sought relief from the tumult 
of his thoughts in the coolness of the outside air and 
the infinite calm of the silent sky. Two thoughts 
must have filled the mind of Jesus as he went out into 
a solitary place to pray: the suddenness of his fame, 
and the greatness of the difficulties he must encounter; 
we may, I think, well believe that he prayed that he 
might neither be uplifted by spiritual pride because 
of his popularity, nor be discouraged and made to fal- 
ter because of the magnitude and discouragements of 
the work. It is very often the case that a physician, 
a lawyer, or a minister, who during his preparatory 
student life has been enchanted by the noble ideals 
of his profession, is painfully disillusioned and dis- 
appointed by the wearisome drudgery, the frequent 
failures and small successes of his actual practice, es- 
pecially at the beginning of his work, and perhaps 
nobody ever had a sharper test of the sincerity of his 
faith and the firmness of his purpose than had Jesus 
when at the very outset of his career he was asked 
to cope with an avalanche of disease and misery. The 
language of the authorized English version, " Rising 
up a great while before day, he went out and departed 
into a solitary place and there prayed, and Simon 
and they that were with him followed after him," does 
not give the full strength of the original. The Greek 



PRAYER 



33 



original implies that Jesus went with suddenness and 
haste, and that the disciples were surprised at his 
action and had difficulty in overtaking him. Jesus 
would not accede to their desire to go back to Caper- 
naum; prayer had calmed his spirit and restored his 
strength and he went to city after city throughout 
Galilee to make the same proclamation, " The king- 
dom of heaven is at hand," and to undertake the same 
difficult and discouraging task of healing those who 
were sick of all kinds of diseases. 

The next account of the praying of Jesus is in con- 
nection with the feeding of a multitude of people in 
the wilderness. The gospels record that Jesus per- 
formed thirty-six miracles or wonderful works. Eigh- 
teen of these are recorded in only one gospel, six are 
narrated in two gospels, eleven are related in three 
gospels, and only one is reported in all four. The 
only wonderful work which the four evangelists record 
is the feeding of 5,000 men and some women and 
children in a desert place. However much the actual 
incident has been embellished by tradition, if we are 
to regard the gospels not as pure legend but as amid 
all misconceptions and exaggerations possessing a his- 
toric substratum, we must in view of the unanimity 
of the evangelists suppose that Jesus did something 
which excited the wonder and admiration of the great 
assemblage. It seems as if in some way or other he 
generously and surprisingly provided for the wants 
of the people and by so doing made himself very pop- 
ular and excited expectation of other gifts of the 
same kind. The fourth gospel concludes its account 
by saying, " When Jesus perceived that they would 
come and take him by force to make him a king, he 
departed again into a mountain, himself alone." The 
II— 3 



34 



PRAYER 



account in Mark is more simple and merely relates 
that when Jesus had sent the people away, he departed 
into a mountain to pray; and again it would seem 
as if he must have prayed that he might not be turned 
aside and misled by popularity, but might say and do 
what he ought, even though he could foresee that 
fidelity to his spiritual ideals would soon change the 
fickle popular favor into disappointment and discon- 
tent and greatly diminish the number of his followers. 

We are warranted in interpreting the practice of 
Jesus in accordance with his instructions to his dis- 
ciples. He tells his followers to beware of ostentatious 
and insincere prayer. Prayer should be brief and 
spiritual and usually private. " When thou prayest, 
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love 
to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners 
of the streets, that they may be seen of men. — But 
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and 
when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret 
shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use 
not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think 
that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 
Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father 
knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask 
him." There is a very great contrast between the 
limitations which Jesus places upon prayer and the 
extravagance of the views elsewhere expressed in Scrip- 
ture. The writer of the epistle attributed to James 
says: "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous 
man availeth much. Elijah was a man subject to 
like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that 
it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for 
the space of three years and six months. And he 



PRAYER 



35 



prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth 
brought forth her fruit." In the prayer of Solomon 
in the book of Kings, men are encouraged to pray 
against famine and pestilence, against blasting and 
mildew and locusts and caterpillars. The effect of 
these and similar statements has been to encourage 
superstition and retard the growth of knowledge of 
the processes of nature and the causes of disease. In 
Andrew D. White's History of the Warfare of Science 
with Theology there is a curious and painful chapter 
which tells of the dreadful pestilences with which 
Europe was periodically scourged because of the 
neglect of ventilation and drainage, and how people 
attributed the choleras and fevers produced by con- 
taminated drinking water, bad food and impure air, 
not to their own lazy and filthy habits, but to an 
inscrutable providence, and endeavored to appease the 
anger of God by fasts and prayers, and huge pro- 
cessions of devotees wildly chanting penitential hymns 
and mercilessly scourging their naked and emaciated 
backs. Truly the prophet says, " My people perish 
for lack of knowledge." An intelligent reading of 
the Scripture and still more an intelligent observation 
of nature and exercise of reason would have prevented 
much disease and painful and premature death. With 
the triumph of medical science and the advance of 
sanitary measures the rate of mortality has fallen 
from eighty per thousand per annum to less than 
twenty, and the average term of life in recent cen- 
turies has been lengthened from twenty-three to thirty- 
seven years. 

We can only control natural forces by obeying 
them. It is both foolish and wicked to ask God to 
save us from the consequences of our own idleness, 



36 



PRAYER 



folly and vice, or to ask him to do for us what he has 
given us the power to do for ourselves. Some things 
are not to be prayed for at all. The government 
of the world is not upon our shoulders and it is pre- 
sumptuous in a being so weak and ignorant as man 
to ask that the sun should stay in its course, that rain 
should fall or cease at man's pleasure, or that the 
wind and waves should obey his will. 

There seems to be abundant testimony that prayer 
is often helpful in the cure of disease, and the con- 
nection of mind and body is so close that it is natural 
that it should be so; but to rely on prayer only and 
to neglect medicine and sanitation always results in 
the increase of disease and mortality. The true doc- 
trine is stated by Jesus when he says, " Ask and ye 
shall receive, seek and ye shall find." In other words, 
ask God for what seems to you desirable and at the 
same time use your own best efforts to obtain it. 
Physical ailments may sometimes be cured by prayer, 
but that earnest and faithful prayer does not always 
suffice is evident from the case of the apostle Paul. 
Paul had some disabling and distressing malady which 
he calls, " a thorn in the flesh," and he tells us that 
for it he besought the Lord thrice, yet it was not taken 
away; yet his prayer was not in vain, for it obtained 
for him the blessed and satisfying assurance, " My 
grace is sufficient for thee." 

Apparently prayer has no influence whatever upon 
the world external to us, has a strong though indirect 
influence upon our bodies, but finds its great field and 
supreme achievements in developing the life of the 
spirit. The wise Shakespeare gives us a correct view 
of the purposes of prayer when he makes Claudius 
say: 



PRAYER 



37 



"What is in prayer, except this twofold force, — 
To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 
Or pardon'd being down ? " 

Some have raised philosophical difficulties from the 
complexity of the universe and the infinity and im- 
mutability of the divine mind. But the law of God 
is perfect freedom. It is a divine instrument for the 
accomplishment of desirable ends and all good things 
can be done under it and by it. Nothing in the uni- 
formity of natural law or in his superior wisdom 
prevents an earthly parent from hearing and answer- 
ing the petitions of his children, and has not God all 
the liberty of his creatures? "He that formed the 
eye, shall he not see? He that planted the ear, shall 
he not hear." So speaks the ancient psalmist and the 
last word of modern philosophy is in accord with it. 
Dr. William James, professor of philosophy at Har- 
vard, in that remarkable book, The Varieties of Re- 
ligious Experience, after giving a vast array of 
biographical data, thus states his general conclusion 
and personal belief : " The whole drift of my educa- 
tion goes to persuade me that the world of our present 
consciousness is only one out of many worlds of con- 
sciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must 
contain experiences which have a meaning for our 
life also (p. 519). . . . Notwithstanding my in- 
ability to accept either popular Christianity or 
scholastic theism, I believe that in communion with 
the ideal, new force comes into the world." (p. 521.) 
So in cold and technical language speaks the cautious 
philosopher, and in the lame and halting way of phi- 
losophy confirms what the soaring and singing poets 
have always told us. Tennyson makes the dying 
King Arthur say to Sir Bedivere : 



38 PRAYER 



" Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? " 

And again the poet tells us of the prayers of Enoch 
Arden in his lonely island, and says: 

" Had not his poor heart 
Spoken with that which being everywhere 
Lets none who speak with Him seem all alone, 
Surely the man had died of solitude. ,, 

The apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. 
The worldly have scoffed at the injunction as absurd 
and impossible. Even to the devout it has been a hard 
saying, and in attempting to obey it literally some 
of the religious orders have their members succeed 
each other at stated intervals in kneeling at the altar 
of devotion, so that there is no hour of the day or 
night throughout the year when prayer is not made. 
Better such a mechanical arrangement than no recog- 
nition at all of the value of prayer; but there is a 
more excellent way. Continual oral prayer is a hard 
service and the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden 
is light. Prayer is a state of mind. It is a joyous 
sense that in God we live and move and have our being 
and that in all our efforts to do our duty and to grow 
wiser and better, he is our continual helper. As the 
poet sings: 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire 
Uttered or unexpressed; 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 



PRAYER 



39 



Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 

The falling of a tear, 
The upward glancing of an eye, 

When none but God is near. 

* * * 

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 

The Christian's native air, 
His watchword at the gates of death ; 

He enters heaven with prayer." 

All man's greatest works have been performed in 
a reverent and careful, which is essentially a prayerful, 
spirit. In olden times the architect and bridge-builder 
offered sacrifices and prayers before beginning his 
work. In our day devotion is less formal, but the 
inquiry as to natural laws and the conditions that 
must be met that the construction may be safe and 
stable is earnest and minute. In all great scientific 
achievement we see the search for knowledge, or what 
may be called the intellectual prayer. But it is in 
man's finer and more spiritual endeavors, especially in 
painting, music, poetry and religion, that men have 
most directly sought help from God and have believed 
that they obtained it. John Milton is the spokesman 
for a great brotherhood of painters and sculptors, 
musicians and poets, when in beginning to write Para- 
dise Lost he prays for strength from a power and 
light from a wisdom above and beyond his own. 

" O Spirit, that dost prefer 
Before all temples the upright heart and pure 
Instruct me, for thou knowest; 

* * * 

What in me is dark 
Illumine, what is low raise and support; 
That to the height of this great argument 



40 



PRAYER 



I may assert eternal providence 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

Or again, when still more sublimely the blind poet 
prays : 

" Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first born! 

3& ifc 

Thee I revisit safe 
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou 
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 
To find thy piercing ray and find no dawn. 

* * * 

So much the rather thou, celestial light, 
Shine inward and the mind through all her powers 
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mists from thence 
Purge and disperse; that I may see and tell 
Of things invisible to mortal sight." 

Longfellow also not only explained the secret of 
the miracles of mediaeval architecture, but he enabled 
us to see the source of his own excellence as a poet 
when he wrote: 

" In the elder days of Art, 

Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part; 
For the gods see everywhere." 

In all ages the wise have perceived that the suc- 
cessful worker must work as in the presence of God 
and in dependence upon his blessing. Said the ancient 
psalmist, " Except the Lord build the house, they 
labor in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the 
city, the watchman waketh but in vain." 

The law that in order that man may do his best 
work he must realize his ultimate dependence upon 
and responsibility to God, is not for great geniuses and 



PRAYER 



41 



rare occasions only. The faithful discharge of daily 
routine duties is as important as the ambition to achieve 
some great and rare result. Did not Robert Brown- 
ing speak with true spiritual insight when he said: 
" All service ranks the same with God." The widow's 
two mites were precious in the sight of God because 
they were her all. Fidelity, according to ability and 
opportunity, is the test of character and the basis of 
merit, and when in the final judgment every man re- 
ceives his deserts, " Many that are first shall be last 
and many that are last shall be first." 

It is when all our work is done not with eye-service 
as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart as unto God, 
that we realize the full possibilities of prayer, that 
mountains of difficulty are removed and that we ask 
and receive, we seek and find, we knock and the door 
is opened unto us. " The needy shall not always be 
forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish 
forever." " No good thing will he withhold from 
them that walk uprightly." 

So men wrote in ancient times, and the deep needs 
and intuitions of the human heart are still the same; 
for the modern poet tells us that " God above is great 
to grant, as mighty to make, and creates the love 
to reward the love." 

" Unanswered yet ? The prayer your lips have pleaded 
In agony of heart these many years? 
Does faith begin to fail, is hope departing 
And think you all in vain those falling tears? 
Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer; 
You shall have your desire sometime, somewhere. 
* * * 

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted; 
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done ; 



42 



PRAYER 



The work began when first your prayer was uttered, 
And God will finish what he has begun ; 
If you will keep the incense burning there, 
His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere." 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, 
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
ing. — James 1:17. 

In the year 1543, Copernicus published one of the 
most important of all books. It was a work upon 
astronomy and contained the first clear mathematical 
demonstration that the sun and not the earth is the 
centre of the system of planets in which we live. To 
that time it had been the all but universal belief of 
mankind that the earth was the central and supreme 
body, and that the sun and moon and stars were mere 
attendants upon it. According to the popular concep- 
tion the earth was a large body, the sun was a small 
lamp hung in the sky to give the earth light, and all 
the little shining stars were merely to delight the eye 
of man and beautify the night. 

To all the egotism which had looked upon it as 
certain that man was the central object of concern for 
all the universe, the Copernican astronomy came as a 
dreadful shock. The sun is more than a million times 
as large as the earth ; yet astronomers tell us that there 
are over 200,000,000 suns as large as ours in space, 
and that each one of these may be attended like our 
sun by a train of planets. Astronomically considered, 
the earth is very small. It bears about the same pro- 
portion to the universe that a room bears to the 
whole outside world. 

Ours is only a little world, yet knowledge of it as 
a whole is quite recent. Men were not quite sure that 

43 



44 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



it was round until the expedition under Magellan cir- 
cumnavigated the globe in Magellan was killed 
by savages, but his companions reached Spain in 
safety after an absence of three years. Two months 
are now sufficient to circle the globe in, and travel is 
so easy and cheap that it is an amusement for the 
idle, and we talk flippantly of globe-trotters. All the 
habitable land and all the navigable seas have been ex- 
plored and mapped, and the earth is girdled with 
railways and telegraph lines. Even venerable Asia, 
the cradle of all the great religions, is startled by the 
hurrying steam-engine and dazzled by the electric 
light. Even Africa, inaccessible to ancient and me- 
diaeval travelers, the continent with no natural inlets, 
the land defended by mountains and deserts, by savage 
beasts and savage men, by scorching heat and deadly 
diseases, even the dark continent has been opened to 
the light and soon the trim tourist, sitting at ease in 
his palace car, will glide smoothly from Cairo to the 
Cape. Except the fields of ice around the two poles, 
every part of the earth is now known. 

The triumphs of astronomy and geography have 
been matched in other departments of science. Man 
has not only surveyed the extent of the globe ; he has 
with equal care and patience studied its component 
parts. The ancients distinguished only four elements, 
fire, water, earth and air; but the modern chemist has 
discovered that all minerals are compounds, and that 
even air and water may be separated into more primary 
forms. The physicist has made those astounding dis- 
coveries in regard to heat and light and sound which 
have revolutionized modes of travel and enabled man 
to flash his messages round the globe in an hour; and 
finally the biologist has examined and classified the 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



45 



forms of organic life and revealed the universal and 
ever-active law of evolution. 

To assist the memory and for the sake of con- 
venience we may select three great books as pre-em- 
inently representative of the changes which modern 
science has brought about in the beliefs of the Chris- 
tian world. First, the book of Copernicus, before 
spoken of ; second the Principia of Newton, and third, 
The Origin of Species by a Natural Selection, published 
by Darwin less than fifty years ago, whose conclusions 
have already been in the main accepted by the over- 
whelming majority of men of science. 

As with the ancient Greeks, so with us the spirit of 
inquiry is audacious and persistent. Greek civiliza- 
tion is briefly summed up in the Bible in the phrase, 
The Greeks seek after wisdom. It is the merest com- 
monplace to say that in architecture, in sculpture, in 
poetry, in rhetoric and in oratory, the Greeks had 
attained unique excellence. It is less commonly re- 
membered that they had also made remarkable prog- 
ress in the various branches of physics. To one who 
reads the records of ancient science, the Greek in- 
vestigators seemed to be on the eve of discovering all 
the natural forces, the knowledge of which we think 
of as distinctly modern. They knew the powers of 
steam and of electricity, and the laws of sound which 
are employed in the telephone. When James Watt 
mused over the vapor escaping from the teakettle 
until he discovered the power of steam and made a 
practical steam-engine, he simply took up the work 
which Hero of Alexandria had left uncompleted 1900 
years before. 

We divide history into three periods, ancient, 
mediaeval, and modern. The middle ages as to the 



46 THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



development of purely scientific discovery, are almost 
a blank. They were given over so completely to re- 
ligion that the pursuit of secular knowledge was neg- 
lected and indeed despised. The cathedral with its 
long-drawn aisles, its clustered columns, with dim 
religious light struggling through its stained windows, 
the cathedral with its statues and paintings, its 
liturgies and genuflexions, its mitred bishops and sur- 
pliced priests, the cathedral with its long processions 
sweeping on with uplifted cross and banner and sol- 
emn, soul-thrilling chant — the cathedral is the su- 
preme product of the middle ages. Everything in 
those ages of blind faith was tributary to that faith. 
The church was exalted with all the powers of man 
till its pride and greed became intolerable, and in the 
mighty convulsive uprising we call the Reformation, 
the northern nations revolted from the power of Rome. 

The Reformation and the Revival of Learning are 
inextricably associated. One gave new power to the 
conscience, the other new energy to the reason; and 
as we look back over the last four hundred years, it 
is evident that the world has passed into a new and 
higher phase of civilization. The spell of tradition 
has been broken and the world has resumed the spirit 
of inquiry that characterized the Greeks when the 
schools of Pagan philosophy were overthrown by the 
mightier forces of Christianity. Yet let us not forget 
that the advent of Christianity, even if it did for a 
long time check scientific research, was a necessary 
step in the world's progress. The world in the time 
of Jesus needed moral regeneration far more than it 
needed further scientific knowledge. Purity, justice, 
and mercy are more precious than science and art. 
Just as this country was arrested in its artistic and 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 47 



scientific development by the presence of slavery and 
had to lay aside all other work and pass through the 
agonies of war to get rid of the hindrance, so the 
progress of ancient society was checked by the cruelty 
and injustice of the rich, by the miseries and vices 
of the poor, and by the lying, the dishonesty and the 
sensuality that were undermining all society. 

Society is still bad enough, yet imperfectly as the 
teachings of Jesus have been understood and practiced, 
it is nevertheless true that Christianity has revivified 
the ethical life of the world. The world has had its 
long and severe moral lesson and is now permitted in 
the providence of God to make new intellectual con- 
quests. 

What has been learned since the world resumed its 
long interrupted scientific studies? The belief in the 
absolute, unerring uniformity of physical law, is what 
distinguishes modern from both ancient and mediaeval 
thought. We read the Greek myths and wonder that 
men should ever have believed them. All the tales of 
enchantments and transformations seem to us mere 
wild extravagance. We do not find the dryad in the 
forest or the naiad at the fountain, and have come to 
think that centaurs and satyrs are only creatures of 
the poet's fancy. In regard to Northern mythology 
and all the fairy tales of the middle ages we are equally 
incredulous. Good fairies no longer help the tidy 
housewife or punish the slattern. No one now expects 
good fortune from the blessing of a kind fairy god- 
mother or evil fortune from the curse of some malicious 
enchantress. No modern clergyman throws his ink- 
stand at the devil as Martin Luther did, or when he 
mislays the manuscript of a sermon thinks, as Cotton 
Mather did, that it has been carried off by a witch. 



48 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



We have in general discarded these views. We have 
utterly ceased to believe the Nature myths of the Greeks, 
and we smile with a complacent feeling of superior 
wisdom at the superstitions of the middle ages ; and 
yet there is one great exception to the consistency with 
which the Christian world has accepted the teachings 
of modern science and that exception is the miracles 
recorded in the Bible. 

I will not now speak of the wonders for which a 
natural explanation may be offered, the surprising 
cures of disease by awakening the latent powers of 
the constitution, but will confine attention to the nar- 
ratives of such occurrences as are clearly supernatural, 
such as the stilling of the tempest, the walking upon 
the sea, and the feeding of a great multitude by the 
miraculous multiplication of a few loaves and fishes. 

What are we to think of these narratives? Are 
they authentic history? Are they really in a different 
class from the Hindoo, the Arabian, the Persian and 
the Greek stories they resemble? The orthodox view 
is that they are. They are supposed to be the creden- 
tials by which Jesus convinced the world of his messiah- 
ship and the attestations of the truth of his teachings. 

In regard to this view it may be said in passing that 
the credentials of an ambassador ought to be presented 
to those to whom he is sent. If Jesus had really pos- 
sessed power over the elements and had been given that 
power that by it he might demonstrate that he was 
God's messenger, surely he would have exercised that 
power in some unmistakable manner in the presence 
of the rulers of the nation. But he did not do so. On 
the contrary, whenever he was asked to perform some 
prodigy of this sort, he always refused to do so, and 
appealed to the law and the prophets, to the reason 
and the conscience. 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



49 



His contemporaries were not convinced that he had 
any power over Nature essentially different from that 
of other men, and the modern world is just as sceptical 
as the ancient, for it sees that none of the alleged 
miracles were ever subjected to scientific tests, and that 
they are utterly unsupported by the testimony of eye- 
witnesses. They do not rest upon contemporary rec- 
ords, but are the poetic creations of later generations. 

Those who do not like to think that myth and legend 
are intermixed with authentic history in the gospels 
assert that Jesus was God incarnate and that power 
over the elements belonged to his unique personality. 

If I thought that this view really exalted the char- 
acter of God, I would try to ignore and stifle all merely 
intellectual objections to it. If to believe that Jesus 
walked upon the water or fed a multitude by miracle 
gave me a deeper sense of the wisdom and goodness of 
God in his government of the world, and of his love 
and care for his human children, I would try to believe 
that Jesus did every wonderful act attributed to him 
in spite of all the arguments that science and philoso- 
phy raise against them. But to me these accounts of 
miracles are just as weak on the moral as they are on 
the intellecual side. 

If it was an act of divine compassion to multiply 
loaves and fishes so as to relieve the distress of a com- 
pany of people who had been fasting less than a day 
and were within easy reach of villages where their wants 
could be supplied, nay, if it was a work of mercy to 
change water into wine that the joy of a wedding 
feast might not be lessened by any deficiency, if the 
goodness of God required him to relieve such small and 
temporary distresses, what are we to think of the fact 
that no supernatural supplies ever relieve the dreadful 
II— 4 



50 THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



famines of India and China; what are we to think of 
the sufferings from hunger and of the eventful death 
from starvation of ship-wrecked sailors and of the 
inhabitants of besieged cities ; what are we to think of 
the bleaching skeletons of homeseeking emigrants who 
died for want of food, and of the bones of scientific 
explorers that whiten on African sands or are pre- 
served in Arctic snows. These tales of miraculous 
supplies of food, if believed to be true, must have been 
as the torments of Tantalus to many a man who has 
died of hunger. Surely if miraculous relief ought to 
be given to men in distress, it makes God appear as 
partial and cruel that he has given such relief so seldom 
and to so few people. 

God is not capricious. With him there is no varia- 
bleness, neither shadow of turning. He governed the 
world in former times as he governs it now, and a little 
consideration will show that in spite of occasional ex- 
treme suffering, the uniformity of law is on the whole 
incalculably beneficent to man, and indeed, so far as 
we can see, is the necessary basis of all intellectual and 
moral development. If God by miracle altered his laws 
for man's relief whenever man's recklessness, or waste- 
fulness or wickedness brought him into distress, pru- 
dence and forethought and industry and kindness would 
be greatly diminished, if indeed they would not be alto- 
gether destroyed. 

Hooker, the learned author of the Ecclesiastical Pol- 
ity, the judicious Hooker, as he is sometimes admiringly 
called, wrote this eloquent sentence : " Of law there 
can no less be said than that her seat is in the bosom 
of God, her voice is the harmony of the universe, all 
things in heaven and earth do her homage, the greatest 
as feeling her power, the least as not exempted from 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



51 



her care, all creatures of what sort soever admiring 
her as the mother of their peace and joy." 

With what a blessed sense of security we all rest 
in our knowledge of the uniformity of law. The 
farmer sows seed, feeling absolutely certain that every 
seed will bear fruit according to its kind, that his 
grapes will produce grapes and not mock him with 
thorns, and that his wheat will grow into life-sustain- 
ing wheat and not perplex and discourage him by turn- 
ing into something quite different. The builder lays 
his foundation by the level and builds his wall by the 
plummet without a shadow of doubt or misgiving that 
if he obeys the law of gravitation, the law will reward 
his confidence and protect his work. By means of this 
mysterious and unchanging principle mother earth 
draws to her broad bosom every house and home almost 
as tenderly as every human mother presses her babe 
to her breast. If the law of the earth's attraction 
should be suspended for a moment, immediately every 
house would be hurled into space just as some maniac 
mother might in senseless fury throw her child to de- 
struction. 

If the properties of coal, of steam and of electricity 
were capricious, our industrial system would at once 
fall to pieces. If the physicist, the chemist and the 
biologist working in their laboratories should suddenly 
find out that like causes no longer produced like results, 
all the text-books of science would at once become waste 
paper and all further investigations into Nature would 
be futile. The imagination simply cannot conceive 
the loss and injury that would ensue if any natural 
law were found untrustworthy. As it is men go for- 
ward in patience and hope, feeling absolutely certain 
that existing knowledge is real and that we may rely 



52 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



upon it. Because Nature's laws are strictly uniform, 
man has been able by degrees to learn what they are 
and to employ them for his benefit. All the arts and 
sciences rest upon the stability of natural law, and 
our belief in that stability is our assurance that we 
can go on making new conquests until man comes into 
his full inheritance and all the powers of the earth are 
enlisted in his service. 

In the earlier books of the Old Testament, God is 
represented as fickle, deceitful, angry, jealous and re- 
vengeful. The early historian does not hesitate to 
say that God repented that he had made man; but a 
later and wiser prophet declared, God is not a man 
that he should lie nor the son of man that he should 
repent. In the same way men in earlier ages had crude 
and imperfect views of the world. Men did not under- 
stand the majesty, the sanctity, the beneficence of law. 
Man thought that law was weak and that it might be 
violated or suspended at his wish or need. He has 
learned now that the law will never be lowered or al- 
tered in any degree, but that it is a fixed and beneficent 
standard by which he is enabled continually to raise 
himself. 

I remember reading not long since in the book of 
doctrine of one of our sister churches the statement 
that miracles had long since ceased. But that state- 
ment is an utter mistake. Nature has not changed. 
It is simply man's view of a Nature that is different. 
To an imaginative child sitting in a moving railway 
car, the landscape seems to fly past the window, but a 
man knows that the trees and houses are fixed and that 
it is only the train that speeds on. In like manner 
untaught and simple-minded people think that the laws 
of Nature have changed, and that in Bible times man 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



53 



had a power over them that he does not now possess. 
But it is not Nature but man that has changed. Na- 
ture is but the expression of God's will and therefore 
like God himself is the same, yesterday, to-day and 
forever. 

How such stories as that Jesus multiplied loaves and 
fishes, or withered a fig-tree by a word, or walked upon 
the water came to be written and believed, is an inter- 
esting historical and psychological inquiry — and 
nothing more. 

These accounts may, I think, be looked upon as mere 
allegories. An illustration from Greek mythology may 
help us. Hercules is said to have sailed safely across 
the broad ocean in an earthen bowl. The commenta- 
tors explain that the sea that he crossed is the sea 
of life and that the earthen bowl in which he sailed is 
the frail human body made of clay. One of the re- 
ported miracles of Jesus is very similar and may be 
similarly explained. When it is said that Jesus walked 
serenely and securely upon the tempestuous waters of 
the sea of Galilee, and that Peter was unable to do so 
and would have sunk if Christ had not reached out his 
hand and rescued him, I think it is, as in the case of 
Hercules, an allegorical representation of how Jesus 
walked triumphantly over the treacherous and stormy 
sea of life, while Peter, but for the help of his ex- 
ample, would have been engulfed in the billows of 
temptation. 

When it is said that the first miracle of Jesus was 
to change water into wine, it is only saying, by a 
very common and natural figure of speech, that the 
teachings of Christ in the gospel are richer, more 
potent and life-giving than the law of Moses and the 
traditions of the Jewish scribes and elders; in a word, 



54 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



that Judaism is to Christianity as water is to wine. 
Tennyson uses just the same figure when he says to 
one of weaker nature: 

" All thy passions matched with mine 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto 
wine." 

But it may be objected that these miracles are nar- 
rated as if they were actual histories. In reply I will 
say that to transform a figure of speech into a narra- 
tive is a very common literary device, one frequently 
employed by Jesus himself. Take for illustration the 
parable of the prodigal son. It reads like a history 
of a man's life ; but the prodigal nevertheless represents 
the publicans and sinners and the hard self-satisfied 
elder brother represents the rigid and formal Scribes 
and Pharisees. 

A story very much like the account of the turning 
of water into wine is that of the multiplication of the 
loaves and fishes. It is a crude and curious, almost 
a humorous story; but its allegorical meaning was 
recognized even in the darkest period of the middle 
ages. I have read a Saxon sermon, written in the 
tenth century by Bishop Aelfric, which explains the 
allegory in the following quaint manner. The five 
loaves were the five books of the law of Moses, and 
the two fishes were the book of Psalms and the book 
of the prophecies ; and the meaning of the story is 
that by the teaching of Jesus and the labors of his 
apostles in disseminating his teaching, the small and 
apparently insufficient spiritual food of Judaism has 
been multiplied into the more abundant Christian sup- 
ply upon which the world has been fed. 

The story that Jesus cursed a barren fig tree and 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



55 



that the tree immediately withered away, is one that 
has perplexed many people. It is very difficult indeed 
to think of it as literally true. It is very easy to see 
that as a mere figure of speech it is striking and nat- 
ural. Every gardener knows that certain vines and 
trees must be pruned and the growth of shoots and 
runners checked, or else while there is an abundance 
of foliage there will be little fruit. Lowell, who was 
a naturalist as well as poet, tells us: 

" No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood, 
His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good." 

It is just this figure that Jesus uses in regard to the 
Jewish church. He says that the church seems to 
flourish, that it has costly temples and multitudes of 
priests, splendid rituals and all the externals of reli- 
gion, but that nevertheless it did not produce the fruits 
of righteousness, but sent forth instead only the spread- 
ing branches of pride and the worthless leaves of for- 
mality. He says that the Jewish church is a barren fig 
tree that will be cut down for its barrenness and made 
to wither away, just as on another occasion he called 
the church a vineyard whose occupants rendered no 
fruit to the owner; from them, because of their un- 
faithfulness, the vineyard should be taken away. 

Take but one more example, the beautiful allegory 
of the transfiguration of Jesus. It is beset with diffi- 
culties if we think of Moses and Elijah as actually 
returning from the spirit world and becoming visible 
to mortal- eye, merely that they might talk for a few 
minutes with Jesus in the presence of three disciples. 
But as an expression of the belief of the early church 
that Jesus was the great central figure in history and 
that Moses and Elijah were only his forerunners, the 
allegory is beautiful and true. 



56 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



Many of the greatest teachers in the world's history 
have used some form of fiction as their method of 
instruction. Jesus himself, the greatest of all teachers, 
was so fond of using comparisons, that it is said of 
him that he never spoke to the people except in para- 
bles. The reason for this is that fiction is really truer 
than fact, strange as that statement may appear to 
one to whom the thought is new. The great and per- 
manent masterpieces of fiction are truer than ordinary 
narratives of facts because they are high generaliza- 
tions of fact. These masterpieces give you the central 
and essential facts of human life freed from details 
that would obscure and limit their meaning. As the 
chemist in his laboratory can easily show you that 
oxygen and hydrogen combine into water, though you 
might watch Nature all your lifetime without ever 
seeing that process of combination, so the poet, the 
dramatist, or novelist in his mental laboratory can re- 
veal truths that you seek in vain in the pages of the 
mere historian. Some wit has condensed this thought 
into the epigram that in history nothing is true but 
the names and the dates, whereas in fiction everything 
is true except the names and the dates. 

Fiction is now and always has been the most popular 
form of literature. Ancient fiction was about gods 
and demi-gods, mediaeval fiction was about angels and 
saints; it is only in modern times that fiction has been 
held in check by the growth of science and has largely 
abandoned the realm of the supernatural, concerning 
itself instead with the actual lives of men and women. 

It is a mistake to separate the Jews and their liter- 
ature too sharply from other nations and their litera- 
tures. People sometimes talk as if Greece produced 
only artists and Judea only prophets, as if the Greeks 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 57 



had no religious feeling and the Jews had no literary 
imagination. But the world is not made on that 
checker-board pattern. Every man has a little of 
every quality belonging to human nature. We may 
ask the questions Shakespeare puts in the mouth of 
Shy lock: Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew 
hands? If you prick us shall we not bleed? If you 
wrong us shall we not revenge? And we may add to 
these questions, Hath not a Jew imagination? Gideon 
we are told put God to a strange test. Judges 6:36- 
40. " And Gideon said unto God, if thou wilt save 
Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, Behold, I will 
put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on 
the fleece only, and it be dry upon the earth beside, 
then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine 
hand, as thou hast said. And it was so: for he rose 
up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, 
and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of 
water. 

" And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be 
hot against me, and I will speak but this once; let 
me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; 
let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all 
the ground let there be dew. 

" And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the 
fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground." 

But it would be a greater miracle than that of the 
dry fleece if it could be made to appear that while 
all other literatures upon earth are saturated with myth 
and legend, Jewish literature alone is altogether dry, 
literal and prosaic. No conception could be further 
from the truth. The Jew is inferior to the Greek 
in grace and flexibility of fancy, but he is not a whit 
inferior in the height and depth and length and breadth 
of his imaginative daring. 



58 THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



The Bible must be interpreted in the light of uni- 
versal literature and by the laws of our common human 
nature; otherwise it cannot be interpreted at all and 
becomes an insoluble enigma, something that stands 
quite apart and is utterly unreconcilable with all the 
rest of our knowledge. 

Of course there are those to whom this view of the 
Bible is shocking. It is not long since the utterance 
of such sentiments would have been punished by im- 
prisonment, and, if unrecanted, by death. Yet let 
me remind those who thing it such a mark of intellec- 
tual perversity and of moral depravity to deny the in- 
fallibility and final authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
that the Bible, however much it may be considered a 
revelation of God, is nevertheless an indirect and sec- 
ondary revelation, a revelation received through and 
colored by the mind of man. Man composed, man 
wrote down, man printed the Bible, just as much as 
he thought out and worked out and fitted together the 
parts of a steam-engine. 

But man did not make the earth and the sky. They 
are God's revelation of himself, unmixed and un- 
modified by man's limitations and misconceptions. 
" Tongues are in trees, sermons in stones, books in the 
running brooks." 

If there is ever any discrepancy or contradiction 
between what these immediate and authentic books of 
God assert and what some poet or teacher in the past 
has supposed, surely the wise and reverent man of 
to-day will say, as a wise and reverent man said in 
the past, Let God be true and every man a liar. 

What a pity it is when any veil of allegory or the 
ignorance or error of any human teacher is allowed to 
hide from men part of God's immediate revelation of 



THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 59 



himself in Nature. Emerson uttered oracular wisdom 
when he said: 

" See thou bring not to field or wood 
The fancies found in books, 
Leave authors' eyes and bring your own 
To brave the landscape's looks." 

And it was a vision of a great truth that led Words- 
worth with even greater daring to say: 

" One impulse from a vernal wood 
Will teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can." 

According to Plato there are three principal ob- 
jects of desire, the true, the beautiful and the good. 
Of these it seems to me that the first is the most im- 
portant, and in a manner foreshadows, if it does not 
indeed include, the other two. Truth is only another 
name for justice, the basis of every virtue. As in the 
physical world, motion may be converted into heat 
and heat into light, so in the moral world, truth, beauty 
and goodness are but different manifestations of the 
character of the Creator. 

God weighs man in the scales of his justice and 
approves or condemns him according to his character 
and purposes. Man, made in the image of God, dares 
also to weigh his Maker in the balance. And what is 
the modern man's judgment of the Creator and his 
creation? . There is practically no difference of opinion 
as to the beauty of the world. All literature is a 
paean of praise of the beauty of the sky, the sea, 
the mountain, the forest, the grass, the flower. From 
the first blush of the morning light, to the last gleam 
of the setting sun, from the opening of the first flower 



60 THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 



in spring to the fall of the last leaf in autumn, the 
earth is beautiful. By night as well as by day, in 
winter as well as in summer, by land and by sea, 
Nature by her beauty praises her Creator. 

If then truth, beauty and goodness are a natural 
chain, the fact that we find truth and beauty every- 
where, strengthens our faith and leads us to expect 
corresponding goodness. And we shall not be disap- 
pointed. Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
God and have no fear whatever of the progress of 
scientific discovery, but expect that every increase of 
knowledge will give new occasion to magnify the power, 
the wisdom and the goodness of the Creator of all 
worlds and the Father of all men. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF 
THE BIBLE 



The wise Greeks said that the Muses were the 
daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne or Memory, mean- 
ing by this symbolic language that the history of the 
past is the great source of guidance and inspiration 
for the future. The life of a man is very short, and 
if he is to know much about the world and its inhab- 
itants he must avail himself of the experience of past 
generations. The greatest events occur but rarely, the 
greatest persons appear at long intervals of time, and 
if we are to know them at all, it must be through the 
books these men have written and the books that have 
been written about them. In order to understand any 
period of history we must read the books that were writ- 
ten at the time, because contemporaries alone can give 
personal testimony. The opinion of later writers is nec- 
essarily second-hand ; and not only so, later writers inev- 
itably infuse into their accounts of a past age a certain 
coloring from their own times. No modern history of 
the Middle Ages can ever give the same vivid and accu- 
rate impression of its spirit as may be obtained by read- 
ing Dante and Boccaccio, Froissart and Chaucer, the 
Golden Legend and the Travels of Marco Polo. 

The history of a nation is to be learned in part 
from its architectural remains, from its coins, medals, 
inscriptions on tombstones and other memorial tablets, 
its official records and formal histories. But these 
give only externals of history, not its inner spirit. It 
is the literature of a nation that reveals its mind and 
heart to us. So strongly has this contrast been felt 

61 



62 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 

between the methods of the formal historian and the 
methods of the creative writer that it has been said, 
In history nothing is true but the names and the dates, 
while in fiction everything is true except the names 
and the dates. A poem or a drama is not only more 
interesting than a book of professed history, it is es- 
sentially more accurate, because it is almost always 
free from bias. A historian may endeavor to be im- 
partial but he must be self-conscious. A man who 
writes history knows that he is writing history, but a 
man who makes a speech in the heat of passion or 
writes a poem to give relief to a heart full of joy 
or crushed by sorrow, does not pause to think that his 
words may by and by afford material to the student 
of the past. The difference between the knowledge 
we get from formal history and that we get from poetry 
and fiction is like the difference between a snapshot 
taken by the camera of a man in a perfectly natural 
position and a picture of the same man when he is 
posing for effect. In some respects the best history 
of any nation is its language, because the language is 
made unconsciously and by all the people, and hence 
is absolutely free from bias and represents the ideas 
and sentiments of the people with photographic ac- 
curacy. Take for instance the old Latin word virtus, 
which by its etymology means manhood, but in Roman 
usage signified valor, showing that the Romans es- 
teemed courage as the essential quality of a man. 
But we have borrowed the word and enriched it with 
a deeper meaning so that with us virtue means, not, 
as with the Romans, primarily or chiefly bravery in 
battle, but the truth, honesty, purity, goodness and 
kindness of heart which are accounted virtues or qual- 
ities that are essential to true manhood. It is an indi- 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



63 



cation of the low moral condition of the Latin races 
that this word has come to mean merely good taste 
and artistic skill, so that in France a pretty knick- 
knack or bit of ornament is called an article of vertu 
and in Italy a skillful performer upon the violin is a 
virtuoso. 

In regard to the Bible the first point I wish to im- 
press is that it is the most sincere, the most instructive, 
the most sublime and wonderful of ancient literatures. 
Roman literature seems cold, formal, thin, meagre and 
soulless in comparison, and Greek literature, which is 
far higher in quality and wider in range than Roman, 
is almost hidden from the English reader because 
classic Greek loses so much in translation. A great poem 
in rhyme can rarely be really translated into a foreign 
tongue. The effort to do so is like breaking a statue 
or a vase into fragments and then laboriously piecing 
the broken particles together again in other positions. 
In poetry so artistic as that of Greece, so dependent 
upon the order and sound of words, upon accent and 
rhythm, the form and substance are almost insepara- 
ble, and when the form is destroyed the substance also 
is lost. But Hebrew poetry is direct and simple, and 
depends very little upon the form and order of the 
words, and can therefore be translated without losing 
the strength and majesty of the original. Something 
of the same kind also may be said of the Greek in 
which the New Testament is written. It is not classic 
Greek, but . a simpler dialect, and therefore may be 
more easily and accurately translated. Indeed there 
are many who assert that the English translation of 
the Greek New Testament is an improvement upon 
the original. The poet Swinburne, who, whatever may 
be his intellectual and moral limitations or defects, is 



64 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



a fine Greek scholar and a marvelous master of rhythm, 
declared that in the Authorized Version canine Greek 
had been translated into divine English. An opinion 
expressed in such words is obviously to be taken with 
allowance; yet it may be well to draw attention to 
the kind of language that Mr. Swinburne censures, 
bearing in mind the fact that the Greek of the New 
Testament is not the original language of Jesus, but a 
translation of the Aramaic which was his vernacular. 
In the authorized English version we read as a com- 
mand of Jesus, Swear not at all, neither by heaven 
for it is God's throne; nor by the earth for it is his 
footstool. A literal translation of the Greek would be, 
"Swear not at all; neither by the heaven for it is 
the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the 
footstool of his feet." This literal rendering is taken 
from the Revised Version made by the great interna- 
tional committee which sat for 79£ days, usually six 
hours a day, and yet after this protracted labor pro- 
duced a very unsatisfactory version. Its chief de- 
fects are the painful literalness of which I have given 
an example, and its extreme conservatism. That it 
has not struck the popular taste is evident from the 
fact that according to the booksellers hardly one pur- 
chaser of a Bible in a hundred buys the revised version. 
The King James version is not so accurate but it is 
far more beautiful and majestic. It was made in the 
age of Shakespeare, made when the English language 
had just reached its poetic development and not yet 
been rendered hard and rigid by the technical require- 
ments of science and philosophy. The English muses 
were then in the bloom of their youth. The translators 
of the Bible were imbued with the poetic spirit of their 
age, and their translation is, as it deserves to be, both 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



65 



the greatest and the most popular of English classics. 
No other book displays so fully the strength and 
beauty of the simple Saxon tongue. The most sublime 
and the tender passages are in words so short and 
simple that a child can understand them, " Come unto 
me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will 
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of 
me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls ; for my yoke is easy and 
my burden is light." Here are fifty-two words and 
forty-three of them are monosyllables, and the longest 
word of all contains only six letters. Our authorized 
version was made at a time when every one read poetry, 
every one had music in his soul, and delighted in the 
concord of sweet sounds. The dignity of the subject 
and the necessity of following the original text closely 
prevented the use of rhyme; but examples of allitera- 
tion are very numerous, and though they are so un- 
obtrusive and so perfectly natural that many persons 
never notice their presence, they add very greatly to 
the melody of the poetic passages. Notice the double 
alliteration in the words : " The Lord God is a sun 
and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no 
good thing will he withhold from them that walk up- 
rightly." Here is another marked and beautiful ex- 
ample : " He maketh the clouds his chariot ; He 
walketh upon the wings of the wind." In the book 
of Revelation the authorized version says, " He shewed 
me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, pro- 
ceeding out of the throne of God ; " and it is a singular 
illustration of the difference between the precise and 
minute scholarship of our time and the poetic grace of 
the Shakespearean epoch that the last revisers should 
have thought it necessary to substitute for the beautiful 
II— 5 



66 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



alliterative phrase, clear as crystal, the more accurate 
but less musical expression, bright as crystal. 

The translators of our early and supreme version 
of the Bible were so full of melody that their words 
may sometimes be divided into regular poetic feet. 
Longfellow, who revived in our time the old poetic 
spirit and was as musical as his elder brother Chaucer, 
used to pick hexameters, such as he used in Evangeline, 
out of the English Bible. Here is an example from 
the Psalms: 

" God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of 
a trumpet." 

And to show how impartially this rhythmical quality is 
distributed, here is one from an epistle of Paul: 

" Husbands j love your wives and be not bitter against 
them. ,, 

Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Long- 
fellow, Lowell, Whittier, Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, 
Emerson, Burke and Webster, Scott, Dickens, George 
Eliot and Hawthorne, and every other great writer of 
English poetry or English prose has found the Bible 
his highest standard of expression and his chief store- 
house of illustration. The works of all our greatest 
writers are so full of allusions to the Bible that a 
good knowledge of this supreme book is the most indis- 
pensable of all prerequisites for a proper study of 
English literature. Men who have had no knowledge 
of Latin or Greek or any foreign tongue ancient or 
modern, who were acquainted with general literature 
in a very small and narrow way, but knew their Eng- 
lish Bible thoroughly and felt deeply the majesty and 
beauty of its thought and language, are hardly inferior 
in grace and power as writers to those who have had 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 67 



every advantage that all languages and all literatures, 
all schools and teachers could afford them. John 
Bunyan, Robert Burns, Abraham Lincoln, men who 
had no complete and systematic knowledge of any 
other literature than the great Hebrew writings in 
their English dress, are the literary equals of Milton 
with his knowledge of all ancient, and Longfellow with 
his familiarity with all modern, sources of culture. 
A thorough knowledge of the English Bible is in 
itself a liberal education, while to be ignorant of it, 
whatever else may be known, is to be essentially un- 
cultured, deaf to the higher harmonies of the English 
muse and dumb in the nobler forms of utterance. 

But the Bible is more than a great literary classic. 
It is a record of religious experience and a source of 
faith and hope and love and joy and every moral 
virtue. It is from the Bible that we learn to say, 
Our Father who art in heaven. It is from the Bible 
that we learn that, God is love. It is from the Bible that 
we learn that there is a special providence in every 
event, that not a sparrow falls to the ground with- 
out God's notice and that the very hairs of our 
heads are numbered. It is from the Bible that we 
learn the priceless value of a man in himself, whether 
he be rich or poor, learned or unlearned, Jew or 
Gentile, Caucasian or African ; for there we read that 
God hath made of one blood all nations of men and is 
no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that 
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of 
him. We are taught that a man's life consisteth not 
in the abundance of the things that he possesseth but 
in the fact that he is a child of God, an immortal 
spirit, an heir to an inheritance incorruptible, unde- 
filed and that fadeth not away. Every man who hath 



68 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



this hope in him purifieth himself. When he sees this 
heavenly vision he understands the words of Jesus, 
What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul? And so he ceases to covet ill- 
gotten wealth and is content with the rewards of hon- 
est industry. A Bible reader knows that sin cannot 
be hidden, for he remembers the words, Thou God 
seest me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine up- 
rising and understandeth my thought afar off. Thou 
compassest my path and my lying down and art ac- 
quainted with all my ways. He remembers the warn- 
ing, Be sure your sin will find you out, and he bears 
with him that two-edged sword which both encourages 
him to do good and deters him from doing evil, What- 
soever a man soweth that shall he also reap. The 
conscience of the Bible reader is strengthened against 
the demands of majorities and fashions, for he reads, 
Go not with the multitude to do evil; for though 
hand join hand, yet shall not the wicked go unpun- 
ished. 

He is strengthened to resist evil by the promise, God 
will not suffer you to be tempted above what you 
are able to bear, but will with every temptation pro- 
vide a way of escape; and by the answer which Paul 
received when he prayed for deliverance from his af- 
fliction, My grace is sufficient for thee. 

The Bible reader is encouraged to work for the re- 
demption of men from ignorance and sin, and for 
their education in all knowledge and virtue, for he 
reads that God is not only just, but is merciful and 
gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and 
truth, that he desireth not the death of the sinner, 
but rather that he should turn from his wickedness 
and live; yea, though his sins be as scarlet they shall 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 69 

be as wool, and though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be whiter than snow. The Bible reader expects 
the Kingdom of God to come, and that the knowledge 
of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the 
bed of the sea. He believes that God is able to save 
to the uttermost, and that he is ready to welcome 
back every prodigal son. The Bible contains exceed- 
ing great and precious promises whereby we are filled 
with hope and are made partakers of the divine nature. 
No wonder that those who read it with prayer and 
faith find it more to them than their necessary food 
and that they love to meditate in it day and night. 

Yet there are some people who utterly neglect and 
ignore the book, others who vigorously denounce and 
oppose it. Sometimes we read that a parent protests 
against the reading of the Bible in the public school, 
and even secures an injunction from the court stopping 
the practice. The prejudice against the Bible arises 
from the ignorant and sectarian use of the book. 
Parents often dislike to have their children taught it 
because they do not want to have their minds filled 
with false and superstitious ideas. They disbelieve 
the stories of miracles and the accounts of the super- 
natural birth and physical resurrection of Jesus. 
Parents who protest against Bible reading are com- 
monly those who, when they were themselves children, 
were taught in a very literal and unimaginative way to 
accept all these accounts as veritable history, and in 
later life the effort to rid themselves of these early 
misconceptions was so difficult and painful that they 
have determined that their children shall not be ham- 
pered as they were and have to pass through the same 
long and soul-shaking struggle. If these stories had 
been explained as popular poetry and as the effort 



70 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 



of the religious consciousness to express spiritual ideas 
in symbolical language, they would not have con- 
ceived this deep aversion and would no more have 
antagonized the reading of the New Testament legends 
than the reading of Greek or Roman mythology or 
German or English fairy tales. 

Many people dislike the Bible because of certain 
statements in it which are much emphasized for sec- 
tarian purposes. The Baptists lay hold of the text: 
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and 
he that believeth not shall be damned. The sacra- 
mentarian Episcopalians exalt into a dogma, Except 
ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of 
man ye have no life in you. The Roman Catholics 
quote to us: Thou art Peter and on this rock I will 
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 
Many persons dislike the terrible pictures the book 
gives of the future punishment of the wicked, pictures 
of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not 
quenched, and of the outer darkness and the weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

It seems cowardly and foolish to adopt the ostrich 
policy of running away and hiding the head and re- 
fusing to look at the ideas with which we disagree. 
Most of these statements contain important truths be- 
neath their bold figures ; and even when the opinions 
expressed are completely outgrown and discarded, the 
record of the former beliefs of men is always inter- 
esting and instructive. There is no book like the 
Bible to show how the race has grown in its concep- 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 71 



tion of the character of God and in love toward 
man. As Darwin's Origin of Species gives us our 
best knowledge of the evolution of the body, so the 
Bible gives us our best knowledge of the evolution of 
the soul. There is no book which if properly read so 
convinces us that 

" Through the ages one increasing purpose runs 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process 
of the suns." 

The Bible contains the record of the enlargement 
and exaltation of man's thought of God, from the 
early conception of a zealous, vengeful, cruel and 
capricious local deity who must continually be propi- 
tiated with sacrifices, to the sublime faith in a God 
and Father of all in whom is no variableness neither 
shadow of turning, who loves all his children with an 
eternal love, and in the way his infinite wisdom sees 
best is educating and uplifting the human race, 
changing the soul from glory into glory, until we 
shall be satisfied when we awake in his likeness. 

The Bible is one of God's best gifts to man; but 
like his other gifts it may be neglected or perverted. 
Though the earth is fruitful, men may starve if they 
do not cultivate the soil, and though the fruits and 
grains it produces are wholesome, men may distil 
poisons from them. The Bible can be perverted, and 
has been perverted so often that the mediaeval church 
in order to prevent heresy kept it out of the hands 
of the laity and forbade its translation into the lan- 
guage of the common people. When William Tyn- 
dale in 1525 translated the New Testament into Eng- 
lish, with the purpose of giving every plowman and 
mechanic an opportunity to possess a copy and read 



72 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 

it himself, Sir Thomas More, one of the wisest and 
best men of the time, who foresaw clearly that such 
a course would lead to multitudes of ignorant inter- 
pretations and would split the church into sects, wrote 
strongly against Tyndale's translation and against the 
distribution of it among the people. His idea was that 
the translation ought to be made by scholars appointed 
by the church and that the distribution of copies 
ought to be regulated by the church. I will quote 
a few lines from More's Dialogue concerning Heresies: 
" Though Holy Scripture be a medicine for him that 
is sick and food for him that is whole, yet since there 
is many a body sore soul-sick that taketh himself 
for whole, and in Holy Scripture is a whole feast 
of so many diverse viands that one may take harm 
by the self -same that shall do another good, — it were 
not therefore, as me think eth, unreasonable that the 
bishop whom God hath in the diocese appointed for 
the chief physician, to discern between the well and 
the sick and between disease and disease, should accord- 
ing to his wisdom and discretion appoint everybody 
their part, as he should perceive to be good and 
wholesome for them. And therefore as he should not 
fail to find many a man to whom he might commit 
the whole, so to say, the truth, I can see no harm 
therein though he should commit unto some man the 
gospel of Matthew, Mark or Luke whom he should 
yet forbid the gospel of St. John, and suffer some 
to read the Acts of the Apostles, whom he would not 
suffer to meddle with the Apocalypse. — Thus may 
the Bishop order the Scripture in our hands with as 
good reason as the father doth by his discretion ap- 
point whieh of his children may for his sadness (se- 
riousness or sedateness) keep a knife to cut his meat, 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 73 



and which shall for his wantonness have his knife 
taken from him for cutting his fingers." 

Whether More's proposal that the distribution of 
the Bible should be in the discretion of a licensed 
officer, was wise or foolish in England four hundred 
years ago, it is utterly impracticable here and now. 
This is the day of democracy, of popular education 
and of the cheap press. We cannot keep people from 
knowing and discussing the contents of the Bible. 
All we can do is to educate them in general and Biblical 
knowledge, and to train them to think so that they can 
distinguish between truth and error, between the spir- 
itual treasure and the earthen vessel that contains 
it, between the faith, hope and charity that shall 
abide and the knowledge, or supposed knowledge, that 
shall vanish away, between the letter that killeth and 
the spirit that giveth life. 

People often wish that they had a simple rule of 
faith and practice; yet let us remember that all our 
powers grow by exercise. The body gains strength by 
undergoing the labor necessary to till the soil and 
harvest the fruits of the ground, and by all forms 
of manual labor; the mind gains vigor and foresight 
by the continual struggle with cold and heat and all 
the inexorable forces of Nature; and the soul develops 
its nobler virtues as it wrestles with perplexing moral 
problems and walks by faith and hope in the light of 
spiritual principles instead of exact and formal rules 
of conduct. 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 



The great clock of nature does not tick off the 
seconds of time or even mark the hours. The day 
is the shortest and the year the longest distinct period 
marked by the celestial mechanism. Once more the 
earth has passed in stately progress through the 
spring, the summer, and the autumn and now winter 
is upon us and the year is about to end. A year is a 
very considerable portion of a human life, for the 
years are measured out to us very sparingly. They 
are at best few and they pass away very quickly. Our 
days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, they are like 
the speeding ships that sink beneath the horizon, and 
our life itself is like a cloud that appeareth for a 
moment and then vanishes away. Old age steals upon 
us so quickly that our life seems like a waking dream, 
and when those of us who have reached or passed 
middle age fall into a retrospective mood and look 
back upon our childhood, it sometimes seems almost as 
shadowy, far off and unreal as a tale that is told of 
the life of another. Surely as another of the few 
years alloted to us on earth is ending, it is a wise 
thing to pray with one of old, So teach us to number 
our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. 

How may we look wisely upon the flight of time? 
What lessons may we learn from the brevity of life 
and the certainty of death? What gains come to us 
as the years pass? We all see the losses, the loss of 
strength, the loss of beauty, the dimness of sight, the 
dulness of hearing, the weariness, the pain, the chronic 
ailment. Are there no compensations for these? 

74 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 75 



Must we all in our hearts assent to what Byron boldly 
said with his lips: 

" Age steals 

J Fire from the mind and vigor from the limb 
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles at the brim." 

Longfellow's language is more restrained and mod- 
erate, yet he too looks on old age in a subdued man- 
ner. He says: 

" As the barometer foretells the storm 
While still the skies are clear, the weather warm, 
So something in us as old age draws near 
Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere. 
The telltale blood in artery and vein 
Sinks from its higher levels in the brain; 
Whatever poet, orator or sage 
May say of it, old age is still old age. 
It is the waning, not the crescent moon; 
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon ; 
It is not strength but weakness; not desire, 
But its surcease ; not the fierce heat of fire, 
The burning and consuming element, 
But that of ashes and of embers spent, 
In which some living sparks we still discern, 
Enough to warm but not enough to burn." 

We are compelled, I think, to assent to the truth 
of this picture. Shakespeare, the observant and can- 
did, gives us a still darker one. He says that 

" The last scene of all 
That ends this strange eventful history, 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 

We must indeed confess that old age is often a pitia- 
ble spectacle of weakness and decay, a mournful sec- 
ond childhood without the innocence, the freshness and 



76 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 

the charm of the first, and even when by virtue of a 
life of temperance and industry old age is seen at its 
best, when it is " like a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly," 
it does not seem to us a satisfying goal and consum- 
mation of life. Following the analogies of nature, 
the reason seems to demand the renewal of the ex- 
hausted faculties, and the heart, filled with unquench- 
able hope and longing, looks forward to immortal life 
and eternal progress. 

Merely to shut the eyes upon what is unpleasant is 
to live in a fool's paradise. A wise man will prefer 
to look at all the facts, and a good man will have 
faith that even the darkest and sternest aspects of 
life when they are understood will be seen to be in 
accord with laws ordained in infinite wisdom for man's 
highest good. A normal life ought to be a consistent 
progress to a satisfying goal. Can we, without sup- 
pressing or distorting facts, find rational grounds of 
faith for believing that it is so? As a matter of fact 
do we not make much progress in this life? And can 
we not see even in the infirmities of age a beneficent 
way of detaching us from this life and preparing us 
for the next? Is not the hypothesis of a future life 
both rational and satisfying? Robert Browning, who 
is a sort of Captain Greatheart to the spiritual pilgrims 
of a perplexed and doubting age, declares that it is. 
He says : 

" Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be 

The last of life for which the first was made, 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, " A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half ; trust God ; see all ; nor 
be afraid!" 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 77 



Old age is the autumn of life; as the autumn of 
the year brings with it the riches of the annual har- 
vest, so the autumn of life brings with it the wealth 
of long observation and wide experience. People 
sometimes talk about childhood with its health, its in- 
nocence and its hope as the happiest period of life. 
Thomas Hood in such a mood wrote: 

" I remember, I remember 

The house where I was born, 
The little window where the sun 

Came peeping in at morn. 
He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day; 
But now I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away! 

I remember, I remember 

The fir trees dark and high; 
I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky. 
It was a childish ignorance; 

But now 'tis little joy 
To know I'm farther off from heaven 

Than when I was a boy." 

But I fancy, that if the choice were actually offered 
to us, scarcely a man or woman could be found who 
would willingly go back to his childhood. Although 
our knowledge is not as large as we wish, it is never- 
theless very precious to us and valued far above the 
ignorant and thoughtless delights of our earlier years. 
We instinctively feel that we have made progress which 
is worth all that it has cost. The fruits of autumn 
are better than the flowers of spring. The wisdom 
of experience is more tangible and valuable than the 



78 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 



vague dreams and crude fancies of the first years of 
life. 

But not only are the intellectual pleasures of adult 
life greater than those of childhood, the pleasures of 
the moral and emotional life also ought to be, and I 
think commonly are, greater. 

The two or three volcanoes that are still active en- 
able us to form some conception of what the earth 
was like during the formative period when every moun- 
tain was pouring forth streams of lava, when every 
sea was a boiling flood, when the whole earth was en- 
veloped in steam and smoke and flame. How different 
from the wholesome air, the bright blue skies, the 
green carpet of grass, the cool, clear brooks, the quiet 
and order and beauty of the dear old earth as we see 
it to-day! The difference is analogous to that be- 
tween the disorderly and tumultuous emotions of youth 
and the serenity of a disciplined will in age. The 
history of man is like the history of the planet he 
inhabits. Youth is the period of storm and tumult, 
old age is that of calm and peace; and so Tennyson 
makes an old man who has outlived his passions and 
outgrown his prejudices say: 

" Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, pas- 
sionate tears, 

Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the plan- 
et's dawning years." 

But old age attains something even better than 
calm. It attains, or should attain, clearness of spir- 
itual vision. John Bunyan, the immortal dreamer, 
tells us in the Pilgrim's Progress of a blessed stage 
in the experience of an aged Christian. He says: 
" Now I saw in my dream that by this time the pil- 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 79 



grims were entering the country of Beulah, whose 
air was very sweet and pleasant. Here they heard 
continually the singing of birds and saw every day the 
flowers appear in the earth. In this country the sun 
shineth night and day: wherefore this was beyond the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death, neither could they 
from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Here 
they were within sight of the city they were going to, 
also here met them some of the inhabitants thereof; 
for in this land the shining ones commonly walked, 
because it was upon the borders of heaven." 

Nature teaches us by many emblems that the pass- 
ing away of one form of good is the necessary con- 
dition of the attainment of another. Day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowl- 
edge. The day expounds and glorifies the night, the 
night expounds and glorifies the day, and so it is 
with our days of joy and our nights of sorrow. 

" For sorrow touched by God grows bright 
With more than rapture's ray, 
As darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day." 

In the winter when the leaves have fallen, the majes- 
tic outlines of the trees are more distinctly seen and 
the eye ranges more freely over the landscape and 
has a vision of a more distant horizon. So in age, as 
the pleasures of the eye and ear diminish and the tin- 
gle in the blood that makes mere physical existence 
a delight departs, the horizon of contemplation enlarges 
and new stars of faith and hope shine in the spiritual 
sky. Longfellow's Evangeline may easily be regarded 
as in some sense an allegory of every human life; for 
each one of us pursues some vision of hope and each 



80 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 



one has some unattained earthly desire. Longfellow 
in words of tender pathos concluding with a highly 
imaginative and beautiful figure says: 

" Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 
journey; 

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 
ended. 

Each succeeding year stole something away from her 
beauty. 

Leaving behind it, broaded and deeper, the gloom and 
the shadow. 

Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray 
o'er her forehead, 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hori- 
zon, 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
morning/' 

Analogous to Longfellow's conception that gray 
hairs are the faint streaks of the dawn of eternal day, 
is that of the poet Waller, who when the snows and 
storms of many winters had shaken his frame wrote 
with quaint cheerfulness. 

" The soul's dark cottage battered and decayed 
Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made." 
An epigrammatic poet tells us that we are taught 
" Half by reason, half by mere decay 
To welcome death and calmly pass away." 

The infirmities of age by dulling our senses and 
diminishing our interest in this life soften our transi- 
tion to the next. 

" Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
All but the page prescribed, the present date." 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 81 



As gazing directly upon the sun dazzles and blinds 
the eyes, so if our vision of the future were clear and 
vivid, it would blind us to the present and disqualify us 
for the humbler earthly duties that must precede the 
nobler activities of heaven. 

Men see the other world as clearly as they are fitted 
to see it and as clearly as for their further intellectual 
and moral development it is best that they should see 
it. 

" The poor Indian with untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind, 
And simple Nature to his hope has given 
Behind the cloud-topt hill a humble heaven — 
Some safer world in depth of wood embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste. 
To be, contents his natural desire, 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 
But thinks admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

The belief in immortality is universal and instinctive. 
As it is seen in crude form even in the lowest and 
least spiritual races of men, so it is one of the few 
articles of religious faith which commonly survive the 
wreck of theological systems. In regard to many of 
the doctrines of orthodoxy, Lord Byron was both an 
unbeliever and a scoffer, but to the yearning for im- 
mortality he gave both reverent and beautiful expres- 
sion. He says: 

" Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps. 
Is that a temple where a god may dwell? 
Why even the worm at last disdains his shattered cell. 
Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, 
Its chambers desolate, its portals foul; 
Yet this was once Ambition's airy hall, 
II— 6 



82 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 

s 

The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul. 
Behold, through each lacklustre, eyeless hole 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit, 
And Passion's host that never brooked control; 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, 
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? 
Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there be 
A land of souls beyond that sable shore, 
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee 
And sophists madly vain of dubious lore, 
How sweet it were in concert to adore 
With those who made our mortal labors light ! 
To hear each voice we feared to hear no more ! 
Behold each mighty shade revealed to sight, 
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the 
right ! 

And Robert Ingersoll, the giant of agnosticism, the 
iconoclast whose heavy hammer, recklessly wielded, not 
only smashed the idols of superstition but also, alas! 
too often scarred and defaced the beautiful images of 
faith, stopped his work of destruction at the tomb. 
Solemnized by the sanctity and beauty of the hope of 
immortality, he spoke not in words of derision or denial 
but of desire and hope. Tender and beautiful are the 
words of the great doubter as he writes: 

" Is there beyond the silent night 

An endless day? 
Is death a door that leads to light? 

We cannot say, 
The tongueless secret locked in fate, 
We do not know. We hope and wait." 

Our age is called the sceptical and materialistic, yet I 
think that the belief in immortality is growing clearer 
and stronger through the very sciences that were at 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 83 



first thought to threaten the destruction of religious 
faith. 

Science clearly teaches that matter however it 
changes its form cannot be destroyed. Chemists have 
proved that when coal is burned up the ashes pro- 
duced by the combustion plus the gases that escape, 
are exactly equal in weight to the original substance. 
In all physical transformations there is only change, 
no loss; and if matter and force are indestructible, 
the almost irresistible conclusion is that spirit which 
is the highest manifestation of energy is also inde- 
structible. The viewless winds in Shakespeare's figure 
hiss to scorn the man who would wound them with his 
sword; in like manner the immortal spirit scoffs at the 
vain wound inflicted by the dart of death. But the cool 
logician forces us to admit that these analogies give 
us no warrant for a belief in a personal immortality. 
The air imprisoned for a while in some chemical com- 
bination, when released, mingles indistinguishably with 
the atmosphere; the water drawn up to the sky in 
vapor, and falling to the earth as rain or snow, when 
swiftly or slowly it finds its way back to the parent 
ocean mingles with the infinite flood; so, we are told 
the human spirit separated from its divine and infinite 
source and for a few brief years joined to the frail and 
decaying flesh, when it is released by death is like air 
returning to the atmosphere, like water returning to 
the ocean, reabsorbed by the divine spirit from which 
it emanated. But there is a difference. The air is 
without consciousness and there could be no better thing 
for it than to return to the body of air to which it 
belongs. The water is without consciousness and its 
natural destiny is to return to the source of its being. 
But man possesses self -consciousness, and there is no 



84 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 

reason to think that this self -consciousness is lost in 
the return of the spirit to its Creator. We can judge 
of the Creator only by ourselves, and as we do not 
labor long and patiently to create something and then 
suddenly and capriciously destroy it, it is not reverent, 
it is not reasonable to think that the Infinite God would 
develop the human soul as a distinctive individuality, 
with all its hope and joys and affections bound up 
with its personal identity and self -consciousness, and 
then blight all our hopes and disappoint all our trust 
by annihilating our conscious personality. 

" Is this the whole sad story of creation, 

Told by its breathing myriads o'er and o'er, — 
One glimpse of day, then black annihilation, 
A sunlit passage to a sunless shore ? " 

No ! No ! No ! Every instinct of the soul revolts 
against the thought. Something in the inmost soul of 
each of us responds to the expressions of faith of other 
men. We admire the words of Epictetus, the philo- 
sophic slave who replied to the cruel master who threat- 
ened to kill him, You may kill me, but you cannot 
hurt me; and in like manner we acknowledge that 
Jesus was right in making conscience the supreme good 
and giving to his followers the command, Fear not them 
that kill the body and after that have no more that 
they can do, but fear God who has power over both 
body and soul. 

Faith is the belief that our best thoughts of God 
are true; nay, faith goes beyond that, declares that 
God will do for us exceeding abundantly above all 
that we can ask or think. Faith tells us that we 
must look upon death as the entrance into a higher 
life, and so far as we now see that involves the retention 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 85 



of our treasures of memory and all our personal affec- 
tions. 

This always has been and I believe always will be 
the faith of mankind, for it rests upon an indestructi- 
ble and universal instinct. 

In the poetic account of the creation in the book 
of Genesis, in regard to the work of the first five days 
it is written: And God saw that it was good; but 
after the work of the sixth and last day, it is de- 
clared, And God saw everything that he had made 
and behold it was very good. A Jewish Rabbi study- 
ing over this change of phraseology reached the con- 
clusion that the first five days were called good because 
in them life was prepared for and created; but that 
on the sixth day, death, the harbinger of immortality, 
was made known. 

What is behind the dark portal where the dread 
shadow of death sits, we do not know. But faith 
with clear voice says to every Christian as it said to 
Paul that " to be with Christ is far better." We may 
judge that death is an agency for benefitting man in 
the next world from the fact that it is a wonderful 
source of blessing in this world. Every new genera- 
tion has a new chance. It selects among the posses- 
sions, it revises the judgments of preceding genera- 
tions. What the winds are to the atmosphere, what 
the currents are to the ocean, that the constant agita- 
tion by birth and death is to the human race. This 
succession of life makes stagnation impossible and 
makes progress easy. We may illustrate by the effect 
of emigration. When men emigrate they leave be- 
hind what they value least and carry with them what 
they think most precious. They escape from the fet- 
ters of precedent, custom and routine. So we find 



86 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 



that from the time of Abraham to whom God said, Get 
thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and 
from thy father's house unto a land that I will show 
thee, to the time of the Pilgrim Fathers who for con- 
science' sake crossed the broad ocean and settled in 
the wilderness, every emigration has left behind it some 
vicious or outworn customs and has led up to some 
higher conceptions and nobler achievements. But no 
removal of the same men to a new soil is so important 
as the substitution of new men for the old; and so 
we must esteem death, which brings each generation 
in succession to the necessity of labor and the responsi- 
bility of choice and leadership, as one of the great 
instruments in the intellectual and moral progress of 
the human race. During the long period of childhood 
parents both consciously and unconsciously teach their 
children what they have themselves learned. They 
condense their experience and give it in precious vials 
of precept and example, and so the elixir of life, 
redistilled from generation to generation, is always be- 
coming a more wonderful and potent essence. Each 
generation by its own tests drops some hurtful and 
adds some helpful ingredient and passes the improved 
formula on to posterity. 

In our presumption and folly we sometimes rebel 
against God's plan for educating us. We shrink from 
the mystery of death and lament the cessation of life 
just as experience is beginning to ripen. We think 
that if man lived a thousand years and if he 

" Grew slowly old at ease 
No faster than his planted trees, 
He might by warrant of his age 
In schemes of broader scope engage." 



TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 87 



But a boat needs ballast as well as sail, and man 
needs the nearness of death to keep down his worldly 
pride as well as the hope of a higher life to awaken 
his spiritual ambition. It is well on every account 
that the life of the race is perpetuated in the present 
manner. The helplessness of infancy, the daring of 
youth and the wisdom of age all help to bring on 

" The one far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves." 

As the year is about to terminate and as the swift 
flight of time reminds us that life itself is rapidly draw- 
ing to an end, the obvious lesson is that we should work 
earnestly while our day of earthly opportunity lasts, 
for we know not how soon the opportunity may cease. 
How often death surprises men with their earthly work 
undone, not through lack of time, but through neglect 
and indecision! 

A sententious moralizer declares: 

" Procrastination is the thief of time ; 
Year after year it steals, till all are fled. 
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears 
The palm, that all men are about to live. 
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer; 
Next day the fatal precedent will plead; 
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life/' 

The Bible frequently warns us against delay and 
neglect. Its exhortation is, Now is the accepted time, 
now is the day of salvation. The lesson which Time 
in its hurried flight gives is, Do not neglect the duty 
of the hour. The lesson which eternity in its infinite 
duration gives is, He that believeth shall not make 
haste but build upon the sure foundation and upon 
the large scale. An eternal life in order to be satis- 



88 TIME, DEATH, ETERNITY 

tying must be noble and progressive. The well being 
of the soul consists in living up to its highest vision 
and ideal of duty. Therefore the writer of the fourth 
gospel makes the profound and beautiful declaration, 
" This is life eternal to know thee, the only true God 
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 



THE PROPER ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
TOWARD THE THEATER 



I shall speak of the proper attitude of the church 
toward amusements, especially toward the drama, which 
more than any other recreation deserves to be called 
an amusement, for Melpomene and Thalia, Clio, 
Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, and all the heav- 
enly sisters unite to adorn, enrich and strengthen it. 
But before discussing what the attitude should be, let 
us take a brief review of what that attitude has been. 

When the Christian church was first organized and 
began its long, hard struggle with Paganism, one of its 
severest conflicts was with corrupt and brutal amuse- 
ments. The Roman people had a passion for gladia- 
torial games in which hundreds and even thousands 
of men fought with each other to the death for the 
entertainment of vast crowds that thronged the colossal 
amphitheaters. Christian churches and councils pro- 
tested and petitioned again and again for the sup- 
pression of these cruel and barbarous amusements ; but 
their protests were unheeded until a heroic monk named 
Telemachus rushed into the arena and in a vain en- 
deavor to separate the combatants was himself slain. 
This incident intensified the agitation, and in the year 
500 the gladiatorial games were finally suppressed by 
the Emperor Theodoric. 

The vices, like the virtues, go in clusters. A cruel 
nation is almost sure to be also a corrupt one. The 
Roman drama was in a different way as demoralizing 
as the gladiatorial exhibitions, and it eventually per- 
ished, under the condemnation of the church, because 

89 



90 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 



it had become indescribably evil in plot, in language 
and in action. 

For many centuries there were no theaters, and the 
only dramatic representations were religious plays 
given in the churches or by the trade guilds under 
ecclesiastical sanction. With the Reformation the sec- 
ular drama revived, and the genius of Shakespeare and 
his contemporaries held the mirror up to nature as it 
had never been held up before. The Shakespearean 
drama is the chief glory of English literature and in 
its appeal to the imagination, to the emotions and to 
the conscience ranks next to the Bible itself. Yet the 
stage was not free from serious abuses even in the 
days of Shakespeare, and when Stephen Gosson wrote 
his Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players and other 
Caterpillars of the Commonwealth, he only expressed 
the feelings common among his Puritan contemporaries. 
After the death of Shakespeare the drama degenerated, 
until in the words of the historian, John Richard 
Green, it fell into " mere coarseness and horror," and 
when, by the overthrow of the monarchy, the Puritan 
party came into power, one of the first acts of the 
government was to suppress the theaters, and during 
the whole period of Puritan ascendancy, both in Eng- 
land and in this country theaters were prohibited. 

Methodism is hardly less hostile than Puritanism. 
John Wesley drew up rules for the government of his 
societies, and among the practices he forbids are: the 
taking of such diversions as cannot be used in the 
name of Lord Jesus ; the singing those songs or read- 
ing those books which do not tend to the knowledge 
or love of God. In this country, the rules of the 
Methodist church have been made more specific and 
forbid Methodists to dance or play cards or attend 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 91 



theaters. In earlier times these rules were strictly en- 
forced, but of late years they have been much disre- 
garded and efforts have been made to repeal them. 
At the great fire in the Iroquois theater in Chicago 
three Methodist preachers and nearly a hundred lay 
members of the Methodist church lost their lives, and 
this intensified the denominational discussion of the 
subject. An extraordinary indication of the feeling 
of leading Methodists is afforded by the fact that the 
Missionary Society of the church unanimously refused 
the bequest of $80,000 left to it by Mr. W. W. Cooper, 
of Kenosha, Wis., who lost his life in the great theater 
fire previously referred to. 

It is evident from the long-continued and strenuous 
opposition of a great part of the Christian church to 
the theater that there are serious evils and great dan- 
gers connected with it; yet it is equally evident from 
the way the theater flourishes in spite of all opposi- 
tion and denunciation that it meets some deep and 
abiding want of human nature. Men cannot, without 
great injury, spend their lives in an unbroken routine 
of utilitarian labor and study. They need not merely 
relaxation and rest, they need and will have enjoy- 
ment. The Puritans were in some respects the very 
salt of the earth. They made a mighty effort to trans- 
form and uplift society. They changed England from 
a monarchy to a commonwealth and they founded in 
America the greatest republic the world has ever seen. 
Yet Puritanism as a religious organization fell into 
decay and disrepute because of its opposition to the 
fine arts and to the social pleasures. For more than 
a hundred years during the palmy days of Puritanism 
in New England, the theater was prohibited, but so- 
ciety was neither better nor happier for the prohibi- 



92 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 

tion. A popular revivalist of the present day, after 
much vehement denunciation of what he calls the filth 
and rot of the theater, says : " There is nothing to 
be lost in staying away and everything to be gained." 
Perhaps it would modify the views of this man and of 
those who like him pass hasty and intemperate judg- 
ments on these questions, if they would not only look 
at the evils of the theater, but also at the evils that 
result from prohibiting it. There are few more in- 
structive yet more melancholy books than the great 
history of the Puritan church, by Cotton Mather, the 
Magnalia Christi Americana. A reader of that mon- 
umental work will learn with surprise and with a pain 
that will at times deepen into horror, of the misery and 
sin that resulted from the rigorous restraints of Puri- 
tanism. In the days when there were no newspapers 
and no theaters, intellectual activity was spent almost 
entirely upon the Bible and the church. The Bible 
was read and expounded daily at family prayers, and 
it was read at private devotions. Sunday was spent 
in listening to long, argumentative and expository ser- 
mons, and the points of theology presented in these 
discourses were discussed through the week at every 
fireside and dinner table. Life was an unbroken round 
of singing and prayer and religious introspection. 
Men were religious overmuch. Their thoughts ran too 
much in the same groove and their emotions were kept 
under a strain which human nature cannot long bear 
without injury. Men grew melancholy and women 
hysterical. Great numbers of people became so trou- 
bled over the persistence of their evil thoughts and 
tendencies that they feared they had committed the un- 
pardonable sin and that the Holy Spirit of God had 
left them to perish in their wickedness. Other per- 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 93 



sons with stronger nerves and less sensitive consciences 
became unorthodox, but because of the power of the 
church and the tremendous pressure of public opinion, 
commonly concealed their dissent by a hypocritical out- 
ward conformity. Crimes and immoralities of all 
kinds were common, and the pillory, the whipping post 
and the branding iron were unable to repress the blas- 
phemies and obscenities that were the natural reaction 
from unnatural restraints. Too much and too ex- 
clusive brooding upon the spiritual enemies of man 
culminated at last in the hideous witchcraft mania in 
which twenty people were hanged for a wholly imag- 
inary and absolutely impossible offense. 

Another historical example, milder and on a smaller 
scale than that of Puritanism, yet not uninstructive, 
is offered by the Society of Friends or Quakers. The 
Quakers had a pure and spiritual religion and all the 
moral virtues ; but their theory of life was too narrow. 
Their influence has been correspondingly limited and 
the sect has now almost disappeared. The Quakers 
carried their opposition to the refinements and enjoy- 
ments of life to a great extreme. They not only 
forbade costly churches and worshipped in plain meet- 
ing houses; they not only proscribed fashionable cloth- 
ing and dressed themselves in plain drab; they not 
only denounced the dance, the card table, the novel 
and the drama, but they even prohibited music, both 
in worship and in the home. In the Quaker book of 
Discipline there was this rule : " We caution our 
members against indulging in music or even possessing 
musical instruments, believing that the practice tends 
to promote a light and vain mind and to disqualify for 
the serious thoughtfulness that becomes an accountable 
being hastening to a final judgment." The Quakers 



94 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 



were noble and attractive people. They were singu- 
larly honest, truthful, pure, peaceable and gentle, but 
they opposed an irresistible human impulse and they 
have been destroyed by it. 

But the asceticism of Puritan and Methodist and 
Quaker, like all other one-sidedness, is rebuked by the 
common sense of mankind. Men have not renounced 
the church because its virtues have been marred by 
fanaticism, because its faith has been clouded by 
superstition, because its zeal has flamed into the fires 
of persecution. Men have clung to the church in 
spite of the Inquisition and the Massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew. Men honor it now in spite of Mormonism 
and Dowieism and every other contemporary aberra- 
tion, and in the same way and for the same reason 
men cherish the drama in spite of all the parasites that 
disfigure and degrade it. 

Jesus said of his proclamation of the Kingdom of 
God, " Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be 
broken and on whomsoever this stone shall fall it will 
grind him to powder," and the same figure is as ap- 
propriate now as of old. Those who resist any form 
of truth, of beauty or goodness do so at their own 
present injury and ultimate destruction. 

Man cannot live by bread alone. The fine arts 
are as necessary to his soul as the useful arts are 
necessary to his body. God who made the sky blue and 
tinged the clouds with purple and gold and made the 
earth to bring forth the lily and the rose, is the great 
Painter and the Teacher of all the makers of pictures. 
God who placed a rainbow upon the neck of the dove, 
who painted the breast of the robin and the wings 
of the oriole, who gave stripes of black and gold 
to the tiger and branching antlers to the stag, who 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 95 



has clothed every creature of air and earth and sea 
in a robe of beauty, is the first great Costumer and 
the Teacher of all the arts of personal adornment. 
God who taught the birds to sing and the winds and 
waters to make music and gave to wood and metal 
their resonant vibrations, is the great Musician and 
the Father of all that play on instruments of music. 
God who made the alternation of day and night and 
of summer and winter, who made the sea to ebb and 
flow and made man's life a harmony by the regular 
beating of his pulse and the measured inspiration and 
expiration of his breath, is the great Orator and Poet 
who taught man the power of cadence and rhythm and 
measure. God who gave man the power of thought 
and speech, who filled his heart with hope and love 
and joy and aspiration, who separated the human 
race into families and nations, making men white and 
black and yellow and brown and giving to each race 
its special characteristics and to every individual man 
some distinctive peculiarity, is the great Author of 
dramatic incident and the Stage-master of that great 
world theater to which we have had entrance and 
from which our exit is sure. 

The drama is the chief of the fine arts, for it is 
a combination of all arts. No painting or poem or 
novel or oration can make so strong an impression 
upon the mind as the drama. 

" The play's the thing 
Wherewith to catch the conscience of the King/' 

and not of the king only, but of every man. A picture 
appeals only to the eye and it is lifeless and unchang- 
ing. A book appeals only to the mind, and as we read 
the words of the unseen characters, we are like blind 



96 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 

men listening to a conversation. But in a play the 
characters are before you. The eye sees them. The 
ear hears them. They live, they speak, they move. 
They exert their whole power of body and mind and 
they impress the senses, the imagination and the emo- 
tions with cumulative and overwhelming power. A 
good play is one of the strongest possible influences 
for good, just as a bad play is one of the strongest 
possible influences for evil. There are some very bad 
plays, and a great many plays which are on the whole 
good, contain some objectionable detail, but the drama, 
like every other department of human life, aspires to 
and tends toward ideal excellence. There are farces 
and extravaganzas which are only to amuse and have 
no moral purpose; but the great majority of the plays 
which represent history or contemporary human life 
contain a good moral. In the ordinary play virtue 
is rewarded and vice is punished. The thief, the se- 
ducer, the traitor and the murderer are held up to 
contempt and made to suffer according to their deserts. 
The commonest and cheapest melodrama confounds the 
villain and rewards the hero. In actual life the ad- 
ministration of justice is imperfect and in consequence 
the villain sometimes escapes, the hero suffers unjustly, 
and society is obliged to take refuge in an appeal to 
the righteous tribunal of the final Judge of all men. 
But although earthly police cannot always detect or 
earthly courts of justice always punish the criminals 
who prey upon society, the dramatist can dispose of 
his characters as he chooses and he endeavors to deal 
with every man according to his deserts. So evident 
is this fact that a perfect distribution of rewards and 
punishments is commonly spoken of as " poetic jus- 
tice." The poets and dramatists punish the bad and re- 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 97 



ward the good, partly of their own free choice and 
because their moral sympathies are right, and partly 
through the prompting of a purely artistic instinct. 
What is false in morals is false in art. No play 
would be popular or even endurable which did not in 
some manner exalt some sort of virtue or heroism. It 
may be a very false, narrow and distorted conception 
of virtue, but men are all at heart hero worshipers, 
and, if a play is to have any vitality at all, it must 
derive it from some actual heroism or some plausible 
counterfeit of it. In plays of the lowest class, those 
which take outlaws and criminals as their heroes, their 
conduct is in some way represented as admirable. 
However deficient in other respects, the men are en- 
dowed with courage and the women with constancy 
and tenderness. If they are common thieves, the 
dramatist shows, or at least hints at, the hard social 
conditions that drive them into crime and idealizes 
them into champions of human rights who are rob- 
bing the rich that they may help the poor, or if there 
is not even this transparent disguise of vice and feeble 
tribute to virtue, at least we are challenged to admire 
the skill and energy with which the hero acts and 
the unshaken fortitude with which he suffers. When 
there is an act of revenge, it is commonly represented 
only as prompt through irregular justice. If love is 
without the sanction of human law, the dramatist has 
the alternative of representing it as in accord with 
some higher and diviner law which justifies the ex- 
ception, or, if he be a profound moral teacher, he 
will vindicate both the moral and the social law and 
show that the suffering of the wrongdoers corresponds 
to the nature of their offense. 

The ancient and mediaeval dramas were mainly upon 
II— 7 



98 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 

religious subjects and were written with the direct 
purpose of impressing religious history and ideals upon 
men. The church has lost its predominance in so- 
ciety, and the stage which mirrors the course of human 
life, has changed just as civilization has itself changed. 
In this secular, commercial, undogmatic and critical 
age, the fundamental doctrines of religion are no 
longer taught by means of the drama. Nor is the 
drama used as it was at the time of the Reformation 
to oppose any of the current religious conceptions and 
beliefs. There are plays, it is true, which show super- 
stition, fanaticism and hypocrisy in an odious light, 
but this is in the interest of true religion and is part 
of the work not only of the dramatist but also of 
the prophet and reformer. 

But if even the lower types of the drama to some 
extent teach moral lessons, how much truer is this of 
the great masterpieces of tragic composition. These, 
in the words of Aristotle, " purify the heart by pity 
and terror." As the chemist in his laboratory can 
control the conditions of his experiments and show us 
the workings of natural forces more clearly than we 
can see them in the ordinary operations of nature, so 
the dramatist can show the virtue and the vices more 
vividly than the ordinary or even the exceptional ob- 
server can see them in real life. How beautiful is 
the love of Romeo and Juliet, and how tragic the fate 
that separates them, and how emphatic the warning the 
play gives against the abuse of parental authority and 
against the feuds and rivalries of aristocratic families ! 
Where else is ingratitude, the vice " sharper than a 
serpent's tooth," so fully exhibited in its deformity 
and horror as in the tragedy of the aged and foolish 
but affectionate and generous King Lear, the man, not 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 99 



sinless, yet " more sinned against than sinning," turned 
from the palace doors of the ungrateful daughters to 
whom he had given all and left unsheltered to the pelt- 
ing rain and dreadful bolts of thunder. How hideous 
is the moral deformity of Goneril and Regan, and how 
it serves to set off the filial duty of the faithful Cor- 
delia! She returns good for evil. She pardons her 
father's unjust suspicions, she forgives his violent 
words of reproof and the cruel act by which she is 
disinherited. These she sets down to age and infirmity, 
and remembering only the care he had given her as 
a child and the love with which he had loved her when 
he was truly himself, she, with a wise and divine char- 
ity, continues to love him as though he had been with- 
out fault. The tears of pity that gushed from the 
bright eyes of Cordelia, the " pearls from diamonds 
dropped," are falling yet, are still softening the heart 
to tenderness and still inspiring it to self-sacrifice. 

The Scripture says, " Be sure your sin will find you 
out," and the dramatist forces the lesson home. To 
all outward appearance Macbeth and Lady Macbeth 
are prosperous. Their crime is not proved and none 
are strong enough to bring them to account. But 
crime is its own punishment. Memory is their scourge. 
They have no peace or rest by day or by night. Mac- 
beth sees the air-drawn dagger and the spectre of 
the murdered Banquo and Lady Macbeth walks in 
her sleep and vainly strives to wash out the stains of 
blood. Not to know the masterpieces of the drama, 
not merely in the solitary and imperfect study of the 
bare text, but in the vivid presentation of the subject 
simultaneously to the eye, the ear, and the mind, is 
to lose one of the noblest sources of instruction and 
inspiration. Such ignorance, if voluntary, is to be 
censured; if involuntary, it is to be deplored. 



100 THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 

The drama is as helpful and indispensable as the 
novel, the newspaper, the school and the church. 
There are bad novels and good novels, bad newspapers 
and good newspapers and bad schools and good schools, 
bad churches and good churches. The Biblical rule 
is, " Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with 
good." Overcome the bad novel with the good novel, 
drive out the low newspaper by the higher one, replace 
the school where ignorance and folly are cramping the 
understanding by the school where knowledge and wis- 
dom are enlarging the mind and strengthening every 
faculty. Supplant the church which misrepresents the 
character of God, which weakens the force of the 
moral law, which caricatures religion and breeds hy- 
pocrisy and superstition, by the church which shows 
God as the holy and loving Father and teaches man 
to obey conscience, to welcome and seek for all truth, 
and to do good in all possible ways to all men, whether 
friends, strangers or enemies. Replace the low theater 
with its frivolities and vulgarities and indecencies by 
the high theater which shall treat worthily every worthy 
theme, show whatever is beautiful in all its beauty, 
whatever is strong in all its strength, and whatever 
is good in all its goodness. Many of the churches are 
now estranged from the theater and hostile to it and 
quite ignorant or forgetful of their common origin 
with it. The church and the theater are twin sisters 
of heavenly birth. There have been times when these 
sisters have lived in close fellowship and walked in 
loving embrace. A one-sided man strives after some 
desirable things and neglects others. Some seek knowl- 
edge, some cultivate taste, some care only for morality 
and virtue. There are men of science who regard 
knowledge above all else, there are artists who give 



THE CHURCH AND THE THEATER 101 

themselves exclusively to the study of the beautiful, 
there are religious men and women who are devoted 
only to religion. But there is a more excellent way. 
There is a rounded culture which understands and 
values alike science and art and religion, which with 
the wise Plato regards alike the true, the beautiful and 
the good, or, going beyond the measured phrase of 
the calm Greek philosopher, there is a wisdom which 
adopts the more complete conception and the more 
passionate intensity of the Christian apostle who says: 
" Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
elevated, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
are of good report; if there be any virtue and any- 
thing worthy of praise, think on these things." 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over 
her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
beareth them on her wings : so the Lord did lead Israel. 
Deuteronomy 32: 11. 

From beginning to the end the Bible is full of 
figures of speech. Genesis tells of a tree of life and 
Revelation speaks of a city with gates of pearl and 
streets of gold. Poets express spiritual ideas by words 
which primarily signify material things. Their lan- 
guage is full of metaphor and simile; and for all 
this there is a deep reason. Fables, parables and 
figures of speech are all most important methods of 
imparting, and, not only of imparting, but of discover- 
ing and confirming, truth. A poet does not attempt 
to prove the truth of his intuitions by a train of rea- 
soning like a logician or mathematician. Instead he 
at once and instinctively appeals to Nature for her 
testimony, and, if he finds that something in Nature 
corresponds exactly to his intuition, it is to him as 
though God himself, the Author of Nature, gave di- 
rect and unmistakable testimony to the truth of his 
conception. 

Most of the figures in the Bible are drawn from 
Nature and they are consequently full of truth and 
beauty. What a picture the text presents to us ! " As 
an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, 
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them 
on her wings." The writer did not imagine that 
scene. Like everything else of value, it is real, and 
some one saw it and described it just as it was. The 

102 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 103 



text is found in the book of Deuteronomy, and critics 
tell us that that book in its present form could not 
have been written by Moses because it is full of ref- 
erences to events that occurred long after his time 
and to customs and cities that did not then exist. They 
say therefore that the book is of late origin and was 
probably written by some priestly historian as a sum- 
mary of the laws and life of Moses. The argument 
seems in the main to be valid and unanswerable, yet 
it also seems evident that the author of this Mosaic 
history, whoever he was, made use of earlier documents, 
some of which may date back even to the time of the 
great lawgiver himself. But one might almost as well 
try to believe that the poems of Robert Burns, full 
as they are of the life of the Scottish peasant, were 
written by an editor in Boston, as to think that this 
picture of the wild bird in the wilderness was made by 
a priestly scribe who had always dwelt in the city. 
Whoever may have written the book as a whole, this 
passage was originally written by a man who had 
lived in the desert. Tradition ascribes poetic genius 
of the highest order to Moses. The lofty and melan- 
choly ninetieth psalm, the pre-eminent funeral psalm, 
tradition ascribes to him. In accordance with this 
traditional view Mrs. Alexander in her impressive poem, 
The Burial of Moses, says : 

" This was the bravest warrior 
That ever buckled sword; 
This the most gifted poet 
That ever breathed a word." 

Tradition is often strangely tenacious of the truth, 
and it may well be that Moses, learned in all the wis- 
dom of the Egyptians and then with full mind living 



104 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



a lonely shepherd's life for many years, wrote poetry 
as well as prose, and I do not see why we may not 
think that this vivid picture of the eagle training her 
young is not in reality a veritable record of a scene 
that Moses witnessed, that he brooded upon with his 
great brain and that rejoiced his heroic heart, and 
that, because it had given to him strength and joy, he 
wrote down for the benefit of all tried and tempted 
people to whom his words might come. 

Let us turn again to the picture, " As an eagle 
stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spread- 
eth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on 
her wings." When the parent bird began to tear the 
comfortable nest to pieces and to thrust the young out 
upon the bare rock, the callow eaglets must have 
thought that their mother was acting very strangely 
and very unkindly. And when she took one of them 
upon her back and flew far off from the sheltered 
crag into the open sky and then suddenly shook the 
young bird off and let it flutter its feeble wings in 
the thin air, the little bird must have been frightened 
as its untrained muscles soon refused to support it 
and it began to sink. But what a relief and joy it 
was, when just as it feared it was going to fall to 
the ground, to have the mother bird suddenly swoop 
underneath it, and bear it again upon her back, until 
the young one was rested and ready for another at- 
tempt. 

The young birds were not ready of their accord to 
leave the shelter of the nest and the warmth of the 
mother's brooding wings. They knew nothing of their 
own latent powers and of the glory of flying through 
the open sky and looking undazzled upon the sun. 
But the mother bird knew, and thought it was time 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 105 



the young ones should know also, and so she stirreth 
up her nest and drove her growing brood out into 
the world to strengthen their powers. The writer of 
our text says that this is the way the Lord deals with 
his people. He too stirs up their nests and drives them 
forth to larger fields and higher efforts. 

The theme that is suggested to me by the figure is 
the uses of difficulty and the influence of discomfort 
and of adversity in the development of character. 
Shakespeare says that adversity is like a toad which 
though ugly and venomous, " wears yet a precious 
jewel in its head." Popular wisdom expresses itself 
to the same effect. We often hear misfortunes spoken 
of as " blessings in disguise " and we are constantly 
reminded that " necessity is the mother of invention." 
The man of science gives us the same testimony as the 
poet and the proverb-maker. We are told that a re- 
sisting medium is necessary to progress, that the resis- 
tance of the air enables the bird to fly, and that the 
density of the water makes it possible for the fish 
to swim, whereas in a vacuum the wings of the bird 
would flutter unavailingly and the fins of the fish 
would be utterly helpless. 

We are often perplexed by our individual limita- 
tions and infirmities. They are very hard to bear. 
They often seem to us not only to lessen our enjoy- 
ment but to hinder our power to work and even to 
keep us from attaining the virtues we desire. Some 
chafe under the fact that they were born poor and 
that poverty thwarts their desire for higher education, 
for books or for foreign travel. A weak constitution 
or some distressing ailment limits the working power 
of others. Still others are confined by circumstances 
to a round of household cares and humble duties and 



106 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



sometimes they grow impatient and wish they could 
lay the burden down and escape from the tiresome 
drudgery and the monotonous routine. Every one 
has trials and disappointments of some kind, and is 
in danger at times of falling into a spirit of com- 
plaint and almost of rebellion. It is not easy to obey 
the Apostle's injunction to " rejoice evermore, to pray 
without ceasing and in everything to give thanks." 
We are in danger of thinking that our own lot is pecul- 
iarly hard and that in our special circumstances no 
great happiness or success is possible. 

It is useful, I think, to correct this too personal and 
introspective mood by looking at human life in gen- 
eral. It is a maxim of the law that no one should be 
a judge in his own case, and a wise physician does 
not always prescribe for himself but calls in a brother 
practitioner who will be able to diagnose his symptoms 
impartially. 

In a similar way we may get some light upon our 
own troubles by looking at the broad, general question 
of adversity and its uses, and if we find that adversity, 
using the word broadly as equivalent to difficulty and 
opposition, is in general a means by which man's 
powers are developed and that suffering is a stimulus 
to physical, mental and moral excellence, we shall 
naturally feel that the law which affects all alike and 
produces beneficial results in other cases, is, in all 
probability, beneficial to us also. 

One of the earliest and most persistent forms in 
which suffering comes to men is from hunger. Man 
can only live a very short time without food before 
hunger causes intense and most unbearable pain. 
Hunger is the first and the most imperious of all the 
whips that drive men to effort. Hunger made primi- 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 107 



tive man examine every nest and fruit and root, made 
him watch the habits of every animal, made him think 
how the cunning creatures could be outwitted, how 
the strong could be conquered, how the swift could be 
overtaken. Hunger led him to his first inventions, 
the club, the hammer, the bow and arrow, the fish- 
hook and the canoe. When in the course of the slow- 
moving ages game grew scare in some localities, hun- 
ger led him to domesticate animals. And again in 
the long lapse of time when flocks and herds multiplied 
and pasturage in some regions was eaten up, hunger 
sharpened men's wits and they began to make rude 
ploughs and to reap their first scanty harvests. 

In course of time, when population again became 
too dense for subsistence, hunger drove out tribe after 
tribe in search of new lands. Wave after wave of 
humanity flowed east and west and north and south 
until everywhere it met the barriers of the sea. Still 
the pressure continued and hunger again quickened 
man's powers and he built ships and hoisted sails and 
became master of the sea as well as the land. And 
hunger still keeps its steady pressure upon us all. 
It scourges the laggards forward. It kills off the 
idle and inefficient. It multiplies inventions. It di- 
versifies industries. It not only drives the laborer to 
his drudgery but it spurs genius to effort. Hunger 
is a universal impelling force. In the words of Ben- 
jamin Taylor, " Hunger makes the pig squeal and 
the poet sing." 

Another great impelling force is cold. Cold first 
taught men to kindle fire, to dress the skins of beasts, 
to sharpen bone into needles, to make cord out of 
sinews and thread out of fibers, to shear the sheep and 
to weave the wool. Cold taught man to build the 



108 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



cottage and to kindle a fire upon the hearthstone, and 
there, as the family shut in from the world nestled 
closely together, domestic happiness and affection grew 
and the home became the nursery of virtue. 

At the present time, the short supply and high price 
of coal are making the public think upon the tariff, 
upon monopolies, upon freight rates and discrimina- 
tions, upon the rights of property and the rights of 
labor, and upon the right and duty of the government 
to protect the public ; and, while it is difficult to predict 
what changes will be brought about as a result of the 
keen scrutiny and intense feeling that have been 
aroused, it is certain that the discussion will have great 
educative value, and that by better laws or by improved 
business methods, the welfare of the community will be 
increased. The eagle's nest has been stirred and the 
nestlings will take some new flight. 

In the present advanced condition of civilized so- 
ciety, there are very many people by whom hunger and 
cold are seldom felt as sharp pangs. Yet even when 
society is industrious and farsighted, when men do their 
best to provide a supply for the future, Nature gives 
their foresight only a moderate and judicious reward. 
She does not allow society to be ruined by its virtues 
and though a foolish rich man may sometimes say to 
himself, " Soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for 
many years, take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry," 
Nature does not allow society as a whole or any great 
part of it because of accumulated wealth to sink into 
indolence and stupidity. 

There is a principle of decay which destroys every 
man's work as soon as he has had a generous and en- 
couraging reward for creating it. His labor in se- 
curing and preparing food is rewarded by the gratifica- 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 109 



tion of his appetite and by the renewed strength of his 
body, but his tempting and delicious food must be 
eaten quickly, for in a few hours, or at most, days, it 
will become loathsome and offensive, and so day by day 
the housewife is kept busy with the stove and the re- 
frigerator and the kettle and the platter. And just as 
the eggs and meat and milk and butter spoil if left too 
long in the pantry, so the fruit decays in the store- 
house and the grain rots in the bin. The farmer must 
plow and sow every year that every year he may reap 
a fresh and wholesome supply of food. 

Clothing can be made to last a little longer. Shakes- 
peare tells us that " the fashion wears out more apparel 
than the man." Yet, apart from fashion's decrees, 
the clothes that were so bright and pretty and becom- 
ing, soon shrink and fade and lose their shape; and so 
the dressmaker and the tailor are kept at work. And 
no architect has yet learned to make a house proof 
against time. The sun, the wind, the rain, the snow 
beat upon man's dwelling, they warp and blister and 
crack and rot its woodwork, they loosen its foundations, 
they crumble its stones, and make its walls totter, and 
sooner or later the most solid house becomes a ruin; 
and so there is always work for the carpenter and the 
builder. 

But growth is as prominent and constant in Nature 
as decay, and it is as effective a means of discipline to 
man. He sows his seeds in garden and field and Na- 
ture's bounty yields him a rich return, but only at the 
price of incessant labor and watchfulness. The weeds 
and the tares, the thorns and the thistles, grow in 
rivalry with his fruits and grains, while worms, insects, 
birds and beasts watch the opportunity to devour and 
so by the forces of growth as well as by those of de- 



110 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



cay, the body of man is trained to labor and his mind 
is made alert, thoughtful and inventive. As stagnant 
water grows foul, while running water keeps sweet, as 
confined air becomes heavy and poisonous, while free 
wind is healthful and bracing, so the mind of man be- 
comes weak and his temper melancholy in idleness, while 
useful work and rational ambition make the body 
strong and the spirit joyous. 

Then again, man has to contend with the opposi- 
tion of his fellows. He has to defend his property 
from the robber and his liberty from the tyrant and 
his conscience from the persecutor, and in doing so he 
enlarges all his powers of mind and strengthens his 
conscience and his will. Life is often called a battle 
and we may borrow an illustration from the modern 
rivalry between armor-plated ships and armor-piercing 
guns. Ironclads have been built that were invulnerable 
by any guns then in use and at once the gunmakers ac- 
cepted the challenge, and by increasing the caliber of 
the gun, by rifling its barrel or by inventing a more 
powerful explosive, they overmatched the defenders. 
Then the shipbuilders have thickened the armor plates 
and tempered the steel into greater resisting power, 
have curved the decks or altered the lines of the hull, 
and the ships have again been stronger than the guns. 
And so from decade to decade, the struggle has gone on 
with alternating success, but with the constant result 
of increasing man's knowledge of mathematics, of 
chemistry and of metallurgy. 

The battle of men over their property rights has 
developed the great science of the law, a science whose 
principles are so broad and whose distinctions are so 
acute, that it is one of the most powerful and effective 
of all instruments of mental discipline, as is abundantly 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 111 



proved by the prominence of lawyers in our political 
history. 

The battle for religious liberty has, perhaps, not 
done as much for man's intellect, but has, I think, done 
more for his conscience. When pope or king or par- 
liament or council decreed that all men must believe thus 
and worship thus, dissenters have searched Scripture 
and history for facts and arguments in opposition, and 
the authorities in church and state have in turn mus- 
tered their array of precedent and interpretation ; and 
thus, by comparison of view, slowly and painfully, yet 
surely the whole matter has been sifted. And when the 
persecutor, worsted in argument (as he always is, for 
no one persecutes in a good cause), seeks to end the con- 
troversy by brute force, then he is met by the devotion 
of the martyr. Then human virtue reaches its climax 
of heroism. The martyr has his crown and his blood is 
the seed of the church. He wins adherents among the 
thoughtful who see his undeserved sufferings and even 
among his former enemies, as Saul was won by the 
death of Stephen. And they that are scattered abroad 
by persecution go everywhere preaching the word, and 
thus the truth spreads by the very agencies meant for 
its destruction. The dragonnades of Louis XIV 
which drove so many Huguenots from France were of 
incalculable benefit to Holland and Germany, to Eng- 
land and the United States, for they sent to each of 
those countries the rarest and best class of citizens, arti- 
sans who might be called artists and men whose intelli- 
gence and virtue were equal to their artistic tastes and 
mechanical skill. And so God everywhere makes the 
wrath and the folly and the sin of man to praise Him 
and to benefit the world. 

Having tried to elucidate from Nature and history 



112 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



the principle that difficulty and opposition are the 
opportunity and the stimulus of virtue, it is perhaps 
well also to give some illustrations of the same truth 
from biography. This is a large and fascinating field. 
Shelley tells us that men 

" Are cradled into poetry by wrong 
And learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

Bacon says that every deformity is a spur which makes 
a man work hard to save himself from contempt and 
that on this account dwarfs and deformed men are usu- 
ally quick-witted and of great intellectual power. 
Alexander Pope (who like the other Alexander might 
be called the Great, for is he not the chief of English 
didactic and satiric poets?) was a hunchback, but who 
knows how much that disfiguring hump and the infirmi- 
ties that cut him off from ordinary ambitions and pleas- 
ures had to do with the unwearied patience with which 
he condensed and polished his thought and secured his 
skill in epigram. 

From the cradle to the grave Byron winced because 
he had a club foot. When he was but three years old he 
struck with his tiny whip a nurse who spoke of his lame- 
ness, and when he lay on his deathbed and the physician 
wished to apply plasters to his feet, he asked if it would 
not do as well to put both plasters on one foot, and 
the physician understood and assented. But chagrin 
gave intensity to his genius, and who that reads in 
Childe Harold the description of the battle of Water- 
loo wonders that Byron is called " the grand Napoleon 
of the realms of rhyme." Mrs. Browning, chief of 
women poets, is another example of genius stimulated 
by physical pain and weakness. 

Paul tells us that his bodily presence was weak and 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 113 



that he had a thorn in the flesh, yet he saw and felt the 
disciplinary uses of suffering and uttered the wonder- 
ful words, " Most gladly therefore will I glory in my 
infirmities — for when I am weak then am I strong." 
Paul's enemies added bonds to his afflictions. Many of 
his epistles were written from prison and if he had re- 
mained at liberty would never have been composed. 
His enemies wished to silence him and to check the 
spread of his doctrine ; but they were greatly mistaken 
in their methods, for they only compelled him to write 
instead of speak. They deprived him of the few little 
congregations he could have reached with his voice 
and they gave him instead an audience that now in- 
cludes all Christendom and will eventually be as wide 
as the world and will perhaps continue to the latest 
generations of men. 

The rain is as needful as the sun to make the fruits 
and grains and flowers to grow, and so in our present 
stage of development, labor and suffering seem to be 
as essential as rest and joy. Yet the cloud and the 
rain are but small as compared with the sun, and they 
are caused by it and are as it were a part of it. So 
joy in the Lord is man's strength, and adversity is 
only valuable as a means of producing deeper and more 
lasting happiness. 

The Scripture declares that God doth not afflict man 
wantonly or needlessly, but for his good, and there is 
much testimony from the depths of the soul to this 
truth. A psalmist says, " Before I was afflicted I went 
astray, but now have I kept thy word." The author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, " No chastening 
seemeth j oyous but grievous ; but afterward it y ieldeth 
the peaceable fruit of righteousness." The Messiah 
himself was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
II— 8 



114 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



grief, and Paul says that Jesus was made perfect 
through suffering. The author of the Epistle of 
James encouraged his fellow-sufferers with the words, 
" My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers 
temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith 
worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting noth- 
ing." A modern writer has given us the epigram, " It 
is a great loss to lose an affliction." 

This is not our rest. Whenever a man or a church 
or a nation builds a nest and thinks to escape labor and 
thought and live at ease, God, like the mother eagle, 
tears the nest apart, drives man from the indolence that 
would be his distruction and compels him to some new 
and higher exercise of his powers. It is not an im- 
personal law of pain that is bringing man to virtue and 
happiness. It is the wise providence of a heavenly 
Father, who numbers every hair of our heads, without 
whom not a sparrow falls to the ground. It is not 
pain in the abstract, it is not blind and cruel adversity 
that does man good. Labor which developes but does 
not overtax, difficulties and sufferings which stimulate 
but do not overwhelm, are what God has appointed unto 
us. As our day, so is our strength. He sends upon 
us no temptation that He will not enable us to escape, 
no burden that He will not enable us to bear. 

How wonderfully all the forces of Nature are held 
in check! The ocean beds are great bowls miles in 
depth and filled with water to the brim. If God with 
his finger should suddenly check the revolution of the 
earth, a resistless wave would sweep every continent 
from shore to shore, and wash man and all his works 
to destruction as boats and bridge and railing and sky- 
light are sometimes swept by a great green overtopping 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



115 



mountain of water from the deck of a storm-tossed ship. 
But God says to the sea, Thus far and no farther and 
here shall thy proud waves be stayed; and so man is 
safe though in mid-continent he is still as it were 
" rocked in the cradle of the deep." And God holds 
the winds in his right hand. If he were to unloose all 
their furies, in a moment every animal and plant and 
every particle of soil would be blown away and the 
earth would be left a naked rock. 

We have a little power of adaptation to varying tem- 
peratures. We can bear the summer's heat and the 
winter's cold, but there are degrees of heat and cold 
that would destroy us in a moment. Evidently the nat- 
ural conditions in which we live are not hostile and 
destructive, but helpful, stimulating and disciplinary. 

I know, of course, how superficial these words and 
all discussions of the mysteries of pain are. We walk 
here as ever3 r where by faith and not by sight. God 
speaks directly to the heart of his obedient children and 
there are multitudes who respond with perfect faith to 
the words of a sufferer who, conscious of his own integ- 
rity and therefore of the righteousness of the Lord of 
all, declared, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
him." 

Suffering is graduated by Nature to our strength; 
and not only is that so, but relief from it is largely 
within our own power. Every difficulty fairly met and 
conquered increases man's ability, every duty done adds 
to his happiness, so that " the path of the just is a 
shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect 
day." 

The natural and in a sense the inevitable end of all 
progress is perfection. This life is but a beginning 
and a probation. The earth, with its toils and trials, 



116 THE USES OF ADVERSITY 



is a school, not a home. We have here no continuing 
city but we seek one out of sight. The faith of good 
men in all ages has been that God has something better 
in store for us. One of old says to us, " I shall be satis- 
fied when I awake in thy likeness," and almost the last 
words of the great Book are, " God shall wipe away all 
fears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any 
more pain." 

Even Paul, brave, restless and aspiring as he was, 
looked for an end to his sufferings and a time of rest 
and reward. He fought his good fight, he finished his 
course, he kept his faith, but he rejoiced in his antici- 
pated crown. 



REDEEMING THE TIME 



According to a popular phrase, Time is money, but 
it is much more than that. Time is opportunity, time 
is life. How to use our time to the best advantage is 
an ever-present practical problem. Perhaps the young 
whose habits are still to be formed are more vitally con- 
cerned in the question than the old whose paths are al- 
ready well-defined; but at any period of life time is 
precious. The spring time when the seed is sown is 
hardly more important than the autumn days when the 
crop is gathered in. Many of the most notable 
achievements in art, science, literature, statesmanship 
and religion have been performed by men on the ex- 
treme verge of human life, when experience has attained 
its maximum, when reputation has reached its zenith, 
when a venerable appearance and the prestige of suc- 
cess give the maximum of weight to a man's words and 
acts. 

" Old age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress." 

Time is a great gift of God, and God has given 
strict commands in man's constitution and in his ex- 
ternal nature that his gift shall not be wasted. When 
Paul said, " If any man will not work, neither shall he 
eat," he was not affirming any new or arbitrary princi- 
ple, but merely warning the church against spurious 
benevolence, stating that the law that man must work 
or die was not abrogated by the gospel of Christ. The 
powers of primitive men were developed under the 
constant and sharp pressure of necessity. Food was 

117 



118 REDEEMING THE TIME 



hard to obtain and hard to preserve in quantity, and so 
by the daily and strenuous exercise of his faculties man 
grew strong in body and keen in intellect. We have 
advanced to artificial conditions in which food is pro- 
duced in superabundance and it is possible for idlers 
both rich and poor to live an unworthy and parasitic 
life upon the labor of the rest of the community. In 
this state of superabundance both our dangers and our 
opportunities are greater than those of primitive men. 
We may waste time more completely than they could, 
we may employ it to nobler ends than they could, or 
even conceive of. 

The wise and systematic use of time is closely allied to 
every other phase of morality and religion. The high- 
est moral wisdom of antiquity as summed up in the ten 
great laws of Moses said : " Six days shalt thou labor 
and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sab- 
bath of the Lord thy God, and in it thou shalt do no 
manner of work." Two principles are there plainly 
laid down. The duty of steady, methodical industry, 
so that necessary work may be done, and the duty of 
rest at intervals, so that life shall not become a weari- 
some and monotonous routine. 

Jesus came not to destroy the ancient law, but to ful- 
fill it. He restated all moral principles in a deeper 
and more spiritual and at the same time a more attrac- 
tive manner than ever before. Life presents itself to 
him as a precious opportunity. The heavenly King 
has entrusted to us a great treasure, and if we neglect 
or despise it he will condemn us as wicked and slothful 
stewards; but if we use it to the best of our ability, 
he will say to us, Well done, good and faithful servants, 
enter ye into the joy of your Lord. Ye have been faith- 
ful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many 
things. 



REDEEMING THE TIME 119 



Jesus not only taught this principle, but he illus- 
trated it. Pie gave his whole time and strength to it. 
His work seemed to him so important that any neglect 
of an opportunity would have been painful and almost 
impossible. He had a baptism to be baptized with 
and was pressed in spirit until it was accomplished. It 
was his meat and drink to do the will of him that sent 
him. 

Paul, the first theologian and systematizer of the 
doctrines of Christianit}', tells us to be diligent in our 
various occupations and to redeem the time from idle- 
ness, from frivolity, from sickness and from injudicious 
and misdirected industry. 

When Moses and Jesus and Paul have spoken upon 
a moral question it seems superflous to cite any other 
individual authority; yet let us gather up a few frag- 
ments of confirmation from secondary sources. The 
poet Spenser, in his great allegory of The Faerie 
Queene, in an elaborate and wonderful picture of the 
house of Pride and all the vices that form the court 
of the wicked queen of it, makes Idleness the Keeper of 
the Gate that led to the gardens of pleasure and sin. 
Isaac Watts, a poet of the extreme opposite type, as 
simple and straightforward as Spenser is allusive and 
indirect, gives the same warning when he says that 

" Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do." 

John Wesley, the methodical man, the prophet of 
order and industry, and cleanliness, as well as of love 
and holiness, wrote in his book of Discipline for the 
guidance of his people, " Never be idle, never be tri- 
flingly employed." 

Many of us lose a good deal of time and suffer sharp 



120 REDEEMING THE TIME 



self-reproach in consequence. The great Samuel John- 
son, who, in spite of defective sight and a taint of 
scrofula that produced almost habitual melancholy and 
at times paralyzed effort and brought him to the verge 
of insanity, giving a pathetic defense of a life for 
which few who know it think an apology necessary and 
many look upon as a wonderful example of humble 
heroism, — Samuel Johnson said in the preface to the 
first great English Dictionary, as nearly as I can re- 
call his pathetic words, " Much of my time has been 
trifled away, much has been lost through illness, much 
has been spent in provision for the day that was passing 
over me." 

All earnest men regret, as did Johnson, that while 
so much useful work remains undone, so much time 
is wasted and so much energy misdirected. 

In the effort to prevent this, and not only to systema- 
tize but to purify and spiritualize life, the Christian 
church has from time to time founded monastic orders 
in which time has been carefully divided into periods 
of labor, of study, and of devotion, and many persons 
taking vows of strict obedience to a prescribed routine 
of this sort have lived useful and pious lives. But the 
monastic life has often degenerated into sloth or even 
sunk into gross vice, and at the best it involves a with- 
drawal from high endeavor and a suppression of indi- 
viduality, which some moralists emphatically condemn 
as a sort of disloyalty to God and man. John Milton, 
that bold and stern asserter of liberty and duty, de- 
clared: " I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered vir- 
tue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, 
where that immortal garland is to be run for, not with- 
out dust and heat," 



REDEEMING THE TIME 121 



After the Reformation the stress of duty took a more 
personal form. The Puritans established no monas- 
teries, but some of them lived almost as rigid and as- 
cetic lives in their own homes as the monks had done 
in their cloisters. Cotton Mather is the greatest ex- 
ample in American history. He kept sixty fast days 
and twenty-two vigils in a single year, and in spite 
of these heavy draughts upon his time and strength 
wrote in that period fourteen books and pamphlets. 
During his lifetime he published very nearly 400 larger 
or smaller works, one of which, his Magnalia Christi 
Americana, is, I believe, the largest volume in our liter- 
ature, the only American book ever published as a 
folio, a ponderous work of which Charles Francis 
Adams says that it is " a geologic record of a glacial 
period." Yet this indefatigable worker, who lived 
to read books and to write sermons and treatises, and 
wrote over the door of his study, Be brief, lest any 
visitor should protract his stay and rob this time-miser 
of his supreme treasure, complained continually of his 
unfruitfulness. 

Perhaps Cotton Mather was uttering a deeper truth 
than he knew when he spoke remorsefully of his un- 
fruitfulness. An ascetic, morbid, unnatural, hurried, 
over-driven life is always in the highest sense unfruit- 
ful. Mather's influence upon his contemporaries was 
smaller than it might have been, and the influence he 
exerted was often misdirected and unwholesome, as for 
instance when he wrote so laboriously his Wonders of 
the Invisible World in support of the belief in witch- 
craft. Contrast with his life of monotonous, creed- 
bound industry, his indoor, bookish routine of effort 
with the stern injunction to every visitor to make his 
stay short, by which he chilled and cut off human sym- 



lm REDEEMING THE TIME 



pathy and closed the avenues of escape from drudgery, 
— compare this with the wise and genial temper in 
which Emerson, also an industrious man, looked at life 
and duty. The great poet-philosopher said: 

" I do not count the hours I spend 
In wandering by the sea; 
The forest is my loyal friend. 
Like God it useth me." 

And look at the results of their respective theories 
of duty. The laborious volumes of the ascetic theolo- 
gian, when remembered at all, are recalled only as some- 
thing to wonder at and pity. The unsystematic writ- 
ings of the poet and essayist who did not grudge the 
time to wait and listen for the voice of God in nature 
and in his soul, have been to thousands an incalculable 
inspiration, are continually widening their influence, 
and seemingly will have the permanent force that be- 
longs to any embodiment of truth, beauty and good- 
ness. 

The life of incessant labor under the lash of an 
uneasy conscience and in fear of a relentless Taskmas- 
ter in the sky is neither Christian nor natural. It does 
not bear the test of the saying of Jesus, " My yoke is 
easy and my burden is light," or of that beautiful 
phrase on our duty to God in the book of Common 
Prayer, " his service is perfect freedom." 

Men may be too industrious and by monotonous ap- 
plication lose all spontaneity and originality of thought 
and all capacity for inventiveness and progress. The 
Chinese are an example upon a great scale of the ill- 
effects of over-emphasizing the virtues of industry and 
reverence, undervaluing those of originality and inde- 
pendence. A nation of plodders progresses but slowly. 



REDEEMING THE TIME 



123 



China had been learned and civilized for a thousand 
years before our Saxon ancestors had emerged from 
barbarism, but vigor and intelligence have accomplished 
so much more than unremitting but imitative industry 
that the poet justly expresses the relative value of 
Chinese and western civilization when he says: 

" Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the 
younger day: 

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 

The problem of the best way to use time is, like all 
other great problems, very largely an individual one. 
Every man must make his own rule to suit his own 
constitution and circumstances; yet we can all derive 
more or less benefit from the formulated experience of 
our fellow men. 

Lord Bacon, a man of noble intellect and benevolent 
temper, one who in spite of some serious defects in his 
character, ought to be held in reverence for his great 
and unselfish labors to promote knowledge and virtue 
among men, has in his precious volume of Essays given 
many a useful suggestion in regard to the right use 
of time. As Lord Chancellor, or as we should express 
it, chief justice of the Supreme Court, Bacon's despatch 
of business was so great that one day when he called for 
the next case, he was told that the docket was clear. 
Under his predecessors the business of the court had 
always been in arrears, and the statement that no liti- 
gant was waiting for the decision of his suit was al- 
most as surprising then as it would be to-day. In his 
essay on Great Place, Bacon, commenting on the faults 
of men in office, gives this advice for obviating delay: 
" Give easy access ; keep times appointed ; go through 
with that which is in hand ; and interlace not business." 



124 REDEEMING THE TIME 



Herbert Spencer makes an equally useful suggestion 
when he says, " One great secret of success is to know 
wisely to lose time." Spenser's paradox is but a corol- 
lary of the great saying, " He that loseth his life shall 
save it." We must often forgo an immediate result 
for the sake of a better one in the future. It is not 
economy to plod on when body and mind are fatigued 
and the work is deteriorating in quality. If it is econ- 
omy for the woodchopper to stop and grind a dull ax 
afresh, if it is necessary to oil a machine to prevent too 
much wear and friction, much more is it necessary to 
rest and refresh brain and muscle at frequent intervals. 
Wise modern pedagogy suggests that young children 
in school be given frequent brief recesses from study 
in which they may march round the room to music or 
go through breathing exercises. In this way they are 
kept healthy and happy and able to work with vigor, 
instead of becoming tired, restless and mischievous, as 
inevitably they do under the strain of prolonged and 
monotonous mental labor. 

Men are but children of a larger growth and all men 
need brief periods of relaxation and enjoyment every 
day, need the weekly rest and inspiration of the Sun- 
day, and the longer and more varied change both of 
occupation and of place afforded by a summer or win- 
ter vacation. 

The conditions of education, industry and social life 
ought to be such that rest should come before exhaustion 
and that vacations should not be principally for mere 
recuperation but for enjoyment, mental enlargement 
and general improvement. But there would be less need 
of long and frequent vacations if men chose their occu- 
pations more wisely and prepared themselves for them 
more thoroughly. It is painful to see any one at- 



REDEEMING THE TIME 125 



tempting to do work which is ill-suited to him and obvi- 
ously overtasks his strength. That cynical yet shrewd 
observer of human life, Dean Swift, said: 

" Brutes find out where their talents lie, 
A bear will not attempt to fly, 
A foundered horse will oft debate 
Before he tries a five barred gate; 
But man we find the only creature 
That, led by folly, combats nature, 
And where his talents least incline 
Absurdly bends his whole design/' 

Nothing is so discouraging to steady and syste- 
matic effort as to feel that one's labor is in vain or to 
little purpose, and nothing so stimulates industry as 
the joy of unmistakable achievement. The question of 
how to economize time is therefore largely a question 
of finding the kind of work one can do with at least a 
reasonable measure of success. Happy is the man who 
has found the work for which he is best adapted, to 
which he will gladly give his whole strength. Happy 
are those persons who have so strong a natural bent that 
they never need to be driven to their tasks, but find their 
employment a delight and an inspiration. These per- 
sons whose work is also their pleasure are the great ex- 
amples of industry and achievement. " Genius," said 
Thomas Carlyle, " is an infinite capacity for taking 
trouble;" but wherever that infinite capacity for labor 
exists, it draws its life from an infinite love and longing 
for truth or beauty or goodness, for some divine and 
perfect ideal. It is by some heavenly vision of what is 
not but ought to be that the great inventors, the great 
poets and painters and musicians, the great philan- 
thropists, reformers, prophets and teachers of man- 
kind, are led on to their unremitting and herculean 
labors. By their faith they are saved. 



126 REDEEMING THE TIME 



But faith in the future, faith in the ideal is hardly 
rational or possible without faith in God. The great- 
est of all incentives to persevering and strenuous la- 
bor for a great end, is to believe with all the heart that 
God approves and will reward it. Responsibility to 
man is the right training of the sense of responsibility 
to God. Children who obey their parents, pupils who 
seek faithfully to learn the lessons required by their 
teachers, workmen who regard the interests of their 
employers and seek to meet their wishes, in so doing are 
developing the best that is in them and qualifying them- 
selves for higher forms of service. To the great ma- 
jority of men and women a steady routine of required 
work, a set task for the accomplishment of which one 
is responsible to some other person or group of persons, 
is wholesome and almost essential. We learn best in 
childhood if we are called upon to recite our lessons 
at regular and frequent intervals. We do our quick- 
est and best work in manhood and womanhood, when it 
must be submitted to others for their approval and 
must be completed at a set time. Even the greatest 
geniuses are stimulated to the exertion of their highest 
powers when their tasks are defined for them by some 
competent and revered authority, that of a wise and 
good ruler, a great University or church, or best of all 
when public opinion lovingly and earnestly demands the 
exercise of their skill. 

There is one great task inclusive of all others. We 
are here as God's children and our duty is to do our 
Father's will. We are here as God's subjects and our 
work is to maintain and advance his Kingdom upon 
earth. Men sometimes think and speak of Christianity 
as though it were an old, a fully tried, an unsuccessful 
and an exhausted conception and mode of life. Of 



REDEEMING THE TIME 127 



some phases of Christianity I believe that this concep- 
tion is true. There are unmistakable symptoms that 
the papacy has passed its best days and entered upon 
its decline. France and Italy and even Spain are re- 
volting against it, and the plan of some Catholic states- 
men to re-establish the power of the church upon the 
basis of republicanism is a dream. The papacy was a 
creation of conditions that have passed away forever. 
Ambition could not have reared such a structure on any 
basis but that of ignorance and credulity and political 
oppression, and now that the education and power of 
thought and the liberties of the people are rapidly 
growing, the power of the papacy is as rapidly falling 
into decay. Like an iceberg which has been carried 
by a resistless current into a tropical ocean and there 
relaxes its rigors under the broad smiles of the sunshine 
and is dissolved by the warmth of the surrounding 
waters, Roman Catholicism is gradually melting away 
now that the great stream of time has carried it into 
the midst of disintegrating forces. 

Nor in these days does Protestant orthodoxy fare 
very much better. Of all forms of Protestant the- 
ology, Calvinism is the most consistent and thorough- 
going. It was framed by a man of clear and powerful 
intellect ; if you accept his premises, his resistless logic 
will compel you to accept his conclusions. But the day 
of Calvinism is past. The Westminster Confession 
cannot be given a new lease of power by any mere re- 
vision. Its parts are interdependent and it must be 
accepted or rejected as a whole, and it is deeply signif- 
icant of the trend of thought in our times that so 
many influential Presbyterians now admit this fact. 
Union Theological Seminary, founded by Presbyterians 
and governed by a Presbyterian board of trustees, has 



128 REDEEMING THE TIME 



announced that hereafter the men appointed to its pro- 
fessorships will not be required to subscribe to the ven- 
erable Presbyterian confession of faith. 

Even more significant was the action of the Presby- 
tery of Nassau, Long Island, when an aged minister 
recently addressed a letter to the presbytery frankly 
stating to his brother ministers and the lay elders that 
he felt himself compelled to reject some of the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Westminster Confession, such 
as the fall of man and the atonement by the blood of 
Christ and asking his ecclesiastical brethren to tell him 
whether with these opinions it was right for him to re- 
main within the Presbyterian church or whether he 
ought to go out from it. In impassioned words Dr. 
Carter asserts that " the Westminster Confession is not 
true. There is no such world as the world of the Con- 
fession. There is no such eternity as the eternity of 
the Confession. It is all rash exaggeration and bit- 
terly untrue. There is no such God as the God of the 
Westminster Confession." Surely here is a heretic if 
there ever was one. If such a repudiation of the Con- 
fession as this is not ground for excommunication, the 
Confession has indeed fallen into disrepute. Yet the 
honest minister was not excommunicated, not even ad- 
monished, but unanimously " requested to continue his 
honored connection with the Presbyterian communion." 

It is just the same with the Baptist or Methodist or 
any other orthodox theology. A few belated theologi- 
ans may struggle frantically to defend them, but prac- 
tically all scholars admit that they are outgrown and 
are no longer an adequate statement of religious truth. 

Dr. William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin 
College, in his recent notable volume, " From Epicurus 
to Christ," has some serious words upon this subject 



REDEEMING THE TIME 129 



of outworn creeds. He says : " The attempt to make 
creed-subscription a test of church membership, or even 
a condition of ministerial standing, is sure to confuse 
intellectual and spiritual things to the serious disad- 
vantage of both. The most sensitively honest men will 
more and more decline to enter the service of the church, 
until subscription to antiquated formulas, long since 
become incredible to the majority of well-trained schol- 
ars, ceases to be required, either literally or for sub- 
stance of doctrine." When words like these are uttered 
by moderate and conservative men, he must be blind 
indeed to the signs of the times who does not see that 
the day of radical change is at hand. 

The day of hierarchies and creeds, of efficacious sac- 
raments and infallible teachers, is drawing to its close ; 
but far from indicating the decline of Christianity, this 
is one of the most hopeful of the signs of progress. 

Christianity is as yet only in its early experimental 
stage. The early church was corrupted by Paganism. 
The mediaeval church was taxed to the utmost in its 
struggle with the northern barbarians. The Lutheran 
movement became in the end as much a political as a 
religious reform. The Puritan conception of life was 
too stern and narrow ever to become universal. The 
Methodist movement was also impaired in force by 
asceticism and ignorance, and has not yet learned to 
encourage thorough research or to give a cordial wel- 
come to new truths. Though Christianity is nineteen 
hundred years old and though there are many pro- 
fessedly Christian nations, it is not an exaggeration but 
a simple truth to say that Christian principles have 
never yet been fairly and fully applied in the life of 
any country whatever. At times in certain countries 
the church has obtained control over legislation and 
II— 9 



130 REDEEMING THE TIME 



has dictated the policy of the state; but it has always 
done so in the spirit of ambition and self-aggrandize- 
ment, and the real principles of Christianity have been 
little practiced under churchly rule. The Kingdom of 
God, as Jesus conceived it and preached it, has not yet 
been anywhere established. God's will is not anywhere 
on earth done with the intelligent and glad obedience 
with which it is done in heaven. The precepts of 
Christ in regard to love and service are applied in some 
families and by some good friends, even perhaps in 
some church societies and small communities; but the 
great Christian principles of unselfishness and active 
benevolence have never been consistently and intelli- 
gently employed in the politics of any nation, in the 
assessment of taxes, in the distribution of offices, in the 
making and enforcing of the laws, in provision for 
the education of the young, in the care of the poor and 
the sick, in the reformation of the criminal. And if 
the principles of Christianity have never been fully ap- 
plied in the home government of any nation, still less 
have they been employed in the management of its for- 
eign affairs. Without any shame, without for the 
most part any apparent consciousness of any higher 
standard of ethics, nations construct their tariffs to 
protect and increase their own trade without any regard 
to the loss and suffering their policy may occasion to the 
people of other countries. I believe that this narrow and 
local and selfish policy will eventually be superseded by 
a humane and intelligent consideration of the interests 
of the whole world, and that in the better days nations 
will be as sensitively careful not to injure each other 
as the members of a virtuous and loving family now 
are. The possibilities of the principles of love and 
service are almost infinite; we have scarcely begun to 



REDEEMING THE TIME 131 



develop them. Jesus, looking upon society to-day, 
might say as he did of old : " Hitherto ye have asked 
nothing; ask and receive that your joy may be full." 

Does the real transformation of the world by Chris- 
tianity seem like a mere Utopian romance, the idle 
dream of an unpractical theorist? Let us not limit the 
power of God. Let us not forget the lessons of experi- 
ence. It may help us to understand the latent and un- 
used moral forces of the world, if we think of the slow 
development of the physical and mechanical forces. 
Think of the power of steam! Steam in the last cen- 
tury has multiplied almost indefinitely the working 
power of the world. It runs countless mills and fac- 
tories, it grinds our flour, and weaves our cloth, and 
forges our metals. It carries men and goods swiftly 
from country to country and is rapidly making the 
world one great community. Yet its practical applica- 
tion is very modern ; for thousands of years men wearily 
and stupidly plodded on without making any use of it. 
Nor was the failure to use steam entirely due to ig- 
norance. There is still extant a book by Hero of Alex- 
andria, who lived in the third century before Christ, in 
which the author gives an account of his experiments 
with steam and shows that it could be used as a motive 
force. He regarded it only as a scientific toy, and 
though hundreds, it may be thousands, of his con- 
temporaries and successors read of his experiments 
and saw his models at work, yet his discovery was not 
followed up, but was neglected and unused and at last 
almost forgotten. 

The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount have 
been almost as much neglected. The church has been 
built on creeds and sacraments, while peace and love 
and disinterested service have been looked upon as hy- 



132 REDEEMING THE TIME 



perboles. To this day good men, even men who are 
professional expounders of the Gospel of Christ, com- 
monly assert that the commands of Jesus, " If a man 
smite thee upon the one cheek, turn to him the other 
also; if a man take away thy coat give him thy cloak 
also," cannot be and ought not to be obeyed. To this 
day the great majority of men act as if they had never 
heard or did not believe the words, " It is more blessed 
to give than to receive." Though Jesus warned men 
that great riches were a burden and a snare and com- 
manded his followers not to seek to lay up treasures 
upon earth, there is still, even among the professed fol- 
lowers of Christ, an eagerness for wealth, an over- 
valuation of money, that produces countless evils and 
makes all moral progress slow and difficult. 

There are Christian individuals and communities; 
but there have been no Christian nations. The Chris- 
tian church has been a sort of hothouse in which a few 
choice plants have been raised, while all outside the 
chilling air forbade the flowers to bloom; but it will 
not always be so. Man is a child of God and has di- 
vine capacities, and the power of love and the blessed- 
ness of service will eventually be understood and utilized 
to the full. 

There is no necessity in the nature of things for so 
much ignorance, poverty, disease, crime, despondency 
and discontent as now exist in the world. Things can 
be and will be changed for the better. It may be that 
we are on the eve of an epoch of moral advance as great 
and surprising as the material progress of the last cen- 
tury. However that may be, the fields of religion and 
philanthropy are white unto the harvest, and the call 
for laborers was never more urgent. Never before had 
man control of such powerful instruments with which 



REDEEMING THE TIME 133 



to work, never before was a useful discovery adopted so 
generally, a wise word carried so swiftly and so far, a 
noble act so influentially reported; never before was 
life so full of opportunity, never was it so important to 
redeem time from waste and misdirection and to em- 
ploy it in the best manner and for the noblest ends. 
May the time that now is, be to all of us the best of 
our lives hitherto, and a prophecy and basis of an 
ever-growing blessedness in the immortal life with 
which God has endowed us. 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



The Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people 
Israel. — Amos vii, 15. 

The religion of ancient Israel consisted largely of 
external observances. The law required the offering of 
sacrifices in connection with various national feasts and 
in connection with marriages, birth, and deaths. The 
laws in regard to food and clothing and the general 
care of health and morals all had a religious sanction 
and required religious interpreters. As a consequence 
there was a large number of priests who cared for the 
temple, ministered at the altar, performed the sacri- 
fices and enforced the requirements of the law. 

But beside these formal officers of religion there were 
other men whose status is less easily defined. There 
were prophets as well as priests. The prophets pro- 
fessed to be revealers of God's will and of future events. 
Some of them were mere soothsayers and fortune-tellers, 
vulgar, ignorant, declamatory, and often mercenary 
preachers. Others were men of intellect and high char- 
acter, patriots and moralists, who delivered their mes- 
sages in strains of lofty poetry. 

All but the very lowest savages have some religious 
ceremonies and some men who are looked upon as the 
special interpreters of the will of their God or gods, and 
from the very earliest period of the history of Israel 
there are occasional references to prophets and proph- 
esyings. There were prophets in the time of Moses. 
We have fragments of the prophecies of Deborah and 
Nathan, and elaborate accounts of the lives of Elijah 
and Elisha; but to Amos belongs the distinction of be- 

134 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 135 



ing the first prophet whose utterances were recorded by 
himself and have come down to our time. He is the 
first sermon writer among the Jews, the father of re- 
ligous instruction and exhortation by means of the 
pen in addititon to the voice. His phophecy is both 
interesting in itself and instructive and valuable because 
of its influence upon others. The pioneer is always de- 
serving of honor, whether he invent the machine, sail 
the sea, write the poem, or initiate the reform. 

Who was Amos? When did he live? What did he 
say? Did he accomplish anything by his efforts? 
Amos was a self-educated prophet of the eighth century 
before Christ. He did not belong to any of the 
schools of the prophets, but felt an irresistible personal 
conviction that he ought to do what he could to improve 
the social and religious conditions about him. The 
country had been at peace for a long period and had 
grown rich ; but as seems always to be the case in every 
age and every country, the wealth was very unequally 
distributed, and while some men were living in great 
luxury and extravagance others were in bitter need. 
Against this condition of things Amos protested in 
vehement language. Amos believed that the unjust 
and cruel social conditions were due to wrong concep- 
tions of God's character and God's law. He thought 
that altogether too much importance was attached to 
the outward forms of religion, and altogether too little 
importance to the inner spirit of righteousness. Amos 
did not deny that the Israelites were God's chosen people 
and that morally and religiously they were better than 
their neighbors ; but he thought that they prided them- 
selves too much upon their past history and upon their 
superior knowledge and virtue. Their better knowl- 
edge and their higher privileges, he thought, only in- 



136 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



creased their responsibility, and that responsibility it 
seemed to him they were losing sight of ; so he uttered 
the great warning which has reverberated through all 
the subsequent ages, and has again and again roused a 
slumbering church to activity: Woe unto them that 
are at ease in Zion. 

Perhaps the zeal of Amos had been intensified by per- 
sonal sufferings. We do not, indeed we cannot, under- 
stand the life of others until we have shared it, or at 
least seen it, and usually we do not sympathize very 
deeply with the wrongs and hardships of other people 
until we ourselves suffer, or fear that we are about to 
suffer, in the same way. It takes nothing from the 
character of a patriot that he is fighting for his own 
liberty as well as for that of others when he defends his 
country from oppression, and it takes nothing from the 
character of a prophet that in seeking to make religion 
purer and laws more just, and his country a better place 
to live in, he is thinking of the benefit to himself in 
such a change as well as the benefit to other people. 

There had been a great famine and Amos, who was a 
poor man, had probably suffered from hunger, — sharp, 
gnawing, debilitating, emaciating, thought-quickening, 
soul-kindling hunger. At all events, Amos went up to 
the capital of Israel in an aroused and indignant mood. 
He walked about among the marble palaces of the 
nobles, and perhaps with the license allowed in the East 
to one who assumes the prophetic dress and character, 
entered some of them and saw the rich nobles in lux- 
urious banqueting halls reclining on ivory couches and 
drinking costly wines. He went also to the temple 
during the progress of some great ceremony, and saw 
some of these same men scrupulously observant of the 
outward forms of religion, yet, as he thought, cruelly 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 137 



indifferent to its real requirements. Then Amos did a 
singular thing. The prophets of Israel very often did 
singular things. They were a singular race. That 
is what made them great. What we want in the world 
is not common sense but uncommon sense. Many of 
them, even great prophets like Elijah and John the 
Baptist, were clothed in the skins of beasts or in rude 
garments made of camel's hair and bound by a leathern 
girdle. Many of them had taken the vows of Naza- 
rites, by which they were bound to abstain from wine 
and all intoxicants and were even forbidden to eat 
grapes, either fresh or dried. The Nazarites disdained 
all luxury and all appearance of conformity to fashion, 
and as an obvious mark of their separation from the 
world and its spirit they allowed their hair and beards 
to grow as long as they would and let their matted 
locks hang down upon their breast and shoulders. And 
the acts of the prophets were as unconventional as their 
costume and appearance. They did not teach in our 
tame manner by logical and temperate argument, or by 
mild and courteous appeal, but with loud outcries and 
vehement gestures and strange symbolic actions. 

For instance, we read in the book of Kings that when 
Ahab was considering whether to go to war with Syria, 
a certain Zedekiah made for himself horns of iron, and 
appearing before King Ahab, and doubtless suiting the 
action to the word, prophesied to him, " With these 
horns shalt thou push the Syrians until thou have con- 
sumed them." 

Elisha was the son of a rich farmer and on a certain 
day was in the field with his father's workmen. They 
were plowing with twelve yoke of oxen of which Elisha 
himself was driving the twelfth yoke. Suddenly Elijah 
appeared, and as he passed by he cast his mantle upon 



158 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



the young plowman. The symbolic act was under- 
stood to be a call to leave home and secular life and be- 
come a prophet. Elisha's response was made in a like 
emblematic manner. He broke his plough to pieces, and 
slaughtered the yoke of oxen and offered their flesh in 
sacrifice, using the wood of the plow to kindle the sacri- 
ficial fire. 

The book of Jeremiah gives us a picture of an even 
more vivid and impressive scene. We read there these 
words : " Thus saith the Lord, Go and buy a potter's 
earthen bottle and take some of the elders of the people 
and of the elders of the priests and go forth unto the 
valley of the son of Hinnom. . . . Then shalt thou 
break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with 
thee and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of 
Hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city; 
as one breaketh a potter's vessel that cannot be made 
whole again." 

When Jesus, the supreme prophet of Israel, made a 
scourge of small cords and drove the money changers 
out of the temple and overthrew their tables, he was 
simply enforcing his teaching by a symbolic act as his 
predecessors had done. 

The conduct of Amos was as bold and dramatic and 
unexpected as that of Zedekiah or Elijah or Jeremiah 
or Jesus. He went to Bethel where all Israel had gath- 
ered to celebrate a great sacrificial feast. The purpose 
of the assembly was thanksgiving and the worshipers 
were for the most part in a self-complacent and joyous 
mood; but their self-complacency was suddenly dis- 
turbed, for Amos began to chant a funeral dirge in 
which he lamented, not the death of father or mother, 
or son or daughter, or of any one man or woman, but 
the death of an apostate nation. In rude measure and 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 139 



with mournful voice he sang, " Hear ye this word which 
I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel. 
The virgin of Israel is fallen, she shall no more rise; 
she is cast down, there is none to raise her up. For 
thus saith the Lord God: The city that went forth a 
thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went 
forth a hundred shall have ten left to the house of 
Israel. . . . Ye have built houses of hewn stone, 
but forasmuch as ye trample upon the poor, ye shall not 
dwell in them ; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but 
forasmuch as ye trample upon the poor ye shall not 
drink the wine thereof." 

Perhaps he was listened to in silence as he uttered 
these words and many more of similar tenor. Perhaps 
he was quickly interrupted, and on that account wrote 
down the prophesy which he was not allowed fully to 
deliver. At any rate his words either on this or 
some other occasion aroused the indignation of the 
high priest Amaziah who sent word to Jeroboam the 
King, saying, " Amos hath conspired against thee in 
the midst of the house of Israel : the land is not able to 
bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam 
shall die by the sword and Israel shall surely be led 
away captive." 

There is no record of Jeroboam's punishing the bold 
prophet in any manner. There were many prophets, 
and they often spoke extravagantly. Perhaps he 
thought the matter beneath his notice. Perhaps like 
another king of a later time he feared the people and 
thought it more prudent not to lay hands upon one 
whom many looked upon with reverence as a true mes- 
senger of God. 

" So Amaziah entered into controversy with Amos 
and said, O thou seer, flee away into the land of Judah, 



140 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



and there eat bread and prophesy there: but prophesy 
no more at Bethel, for it is the King's sanctuary. 
Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah, I was no 
prophet, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of syca- 
more trees; and the Lord took me from following the 
flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my 
people Israel. Now, therefore, hear thou the word of 
the Lord: Thou* sayest prophesy not against Israel, — ■ 
therefore thus saith the Lord, Thy sons and thy 
daughters shall fall by the sword, thy wife shall be a 
captive, and thou thyself shall die in a land that is 
unclean and Israel shall surely be led away captive out 
of his land." 

The Bible gives us no account of the later life of 
Amaziah and his family; but the prediction against 
the nation was fulfilled, for forty years after this time 
it was carried into captivity by the Assyrians. 

How many a struggle with himself Amos must have 
had before he ventured to enrage the rulers and the rich 
men by this public denunciation of the evils of the time ! 
He must have foreseen that he was to bring loss and 
trouble upon himself, that his liberty and his life were 
in danger. His own words show something of his 
spiritual conflict, for his book contains these words: 
"Ye afflict the just, ye take a bribe; therefore he that 
is prudent will keep silence in such a time ; for it is an 
evil time." 

Why do prophets defy all prudence? Why do they 
suffer loss? Why do they brave death to deliver their 
message? It is because great as is the pain of speech, 
the pain of silence is greater still. Jesus said, " I have 
a baptism to be baptised with and how am I straitened 
till it be accomplished ! " Paul said, " Woe is me if I 
preach not the gospel." It was just such an imperious 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 141 



impulse that moved Amos. His conscience terrified 
him. Fear of God's anger alarmed him. When the 
fear of God comes upon a man he loses all other fear. 
That was the state of mind of Jesus when he said to his 
disciples, " Fear not them that kill the body and after 
that have no more that they can do, but fear him who 
hath power over both soul and body, yea, I say unto 
you, fear him." The words of Amos are less striking, 
but they show the same belief and the same spirit. 
Amos the herdsman, while guarding his flocks, had often 
been startled by the fierce growlings of some hungry 
wild beast. God, in his fierce indignation at man's sin, 
seemed to Amos like a great lion ready to leap upon 
him and devour him. He says : " The lion hath 
roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, 
who can but prophesy ? " 

So Amos the prophet of righteousness, the prisoner 
of conscience, denounced the greed and oppression of 
the rich, and he denounced with equal vehemence the 
misdirection of the energies of the church. All the 
beauty of the sanctuary, all the costly sacrifices and all 
the solemnities of worship seemed to Amos useless and 
even offensive, if they did not make men just and merci- 
ful. This is the word of the Lord as Amos delivered it : 
" I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight 
in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me 
your burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will not ac- 
cept them: neither will I regard your peace offerings of 
fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of your 
songs; for I will not hear your melodies. But let 
judgment roll down as waters and righteousness as a 
mighty stream." 

Of course this language and much more of the same 
sort gave a great shock to all those people who identi- 



142 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



fied religion with the church and its ordinances and 
ceremonies. Amos was accused of reviling the church 
and of every manner of hersey, impiety, and blas- 
phemy. Amos predicted in vivid language that God 
would destroy the nation for its sins. He said: " Thus 
saith the Lord: An adversary shall bring down thy 
strength from thee and thy palaces shall be spoiled. 
Thus saith the Lord: As the shepherd rescueth out of 
the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of the head of 
a lamb ; so shall the children of Israel be rescued." 

This seemed to the formalists and literalists of the 
time to be gross infidelity and impiety. What! they 
said, Is not Israel God's chosen people? Did not God 
make an everlasting covenant with our fathers? Are 
we not the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob ? Did not God deliver our fathers from bondage 
in Egypt and give this goodly land to them and to 
their posterity for ever? 

To all this Amos gave an answer that must have 
seemed to many pious and well-meaning startling and 
shocking and revolutionary. Speaking in the name of 
God, he says in substance, You boast that you are the 
chosen people but you are no better to me than the 
Ethiopian. You say that your history is full of 
providential interpositions in your favor and especially 
that I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and 
out of the house of bondage, but remember that my 
providence extends to all nations alike. I brought you 
from Egypt, but I also brought the Philistine from 
Caphtor and I brought the Syrians from Kir. I have 
no favorites among the nations. I judge all the chil- 
dren of men impartially and will destroy from off the 
face of the earth any nation that transgresses the law 
of justice and will build up and establish any nation 
whose people seek truth and righteousness. 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 143 



We do not know much about the immediate effect of 
this exalted spiritual teaching. That it had an imme- 
diate effect is evident from the fact that after the 
death of the author his book was preserved and copies 
of it were made. The herdsman and vinedresser of 
Tekoa, the self-educated prophet, who left his flock and 
his vineyard in fear and trembling because he had a 
message from God, did not fail in the work to which he 
was called. His teaching not only impressed his own 
time, but his book became a Hebrew classic. Its pre- 
cepts were taught to children at home and in school 
and in course of time the spiritual leaders of the people 
adopted it as one of the sacred scriptures to be read in 
the services of the synagogue. Year after year and 
century after century the burning words of Amos were 
read aloud in the congregation of Israel. Sometimes 
the reader was an intelligent and honest man who 
brought out the meaning clearly and gave to the words 
something of their original force and fire. Sometimes 
perhaps the reader was a dull, stupid and careless man 
whose unspiritual temper and monotonous utterance 
belittled and degraded and half stifled the prophet's 
great teaching. 

Yet such fire as his could not be quenched or con- 
cealed. In every subsequent generation there were 
those whose minds were enlightened by his clear teach- 
ing, whose hearts were roused by his courageous exam- 
ple. Amos was the pioneer and spiritual father of a 
long line of prophets. More or less clearly his in- 
fluence may be discerned in the writings of Hosea, 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and all their successors. 
" O Israel, prepare to meet thy God," said Amos, and 
the prophets took up his message and sought to make 
Israel a holy nation. Amos had said to the Israelites, 



144 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



" You are indeed the children of Abraham but you are 
no more precious in the sight of God than the Ethi- 
opians," and when John the Baptist, the last of the 
great prophets of the pre-Christian era, began to 
preach his words were but an echo of those of Amos, 
for he said to the self-righteous Pharises proud of 
their spiritual ancestry, " Think not to say within 
yourselves, Abraham is our father: for I say unto you 
that God is able of these stones to raise up children 
unto Abraham." After John came Jesus, and the line 
of the herdsman of Tekoa ended with the carpenter of 
Nazareth. What an indirect testimony we have in the 
lives of Amos and of Jesus to the value of a simple, 
natural, industrious mode of life, one in which the body 
is strengthened by regular labor and the faculties are 
quickened by careful observation and by the oppor- 
tunity of leisurely meditation! 

The Apostle Paul in the epistle to the Romans says : 
" Whatsoever things were written aforetime were writ- 
ten for our learning, that we through patience and 
comfort of the scripture might have hope." History 
is philosophy teaching by example. We read of the 
past to enable us to live more wisely and nobly in the 
present. What can we learn as to our power and our 
duty from the life of Amos the pioneer prophet of 
Israel? We can, I think, at any rate learn that it is 
noble and helpful to make a vigorous protest against 
injustice. 

History repeats itself. The message of Amos needs 
only to be translated into modern English to be as 
applicable to our times as to his. Amos charges the 
traders of his time with dealing falsely with deceitful 
balances, with making the ephah small and the shekel 
great. 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 145 



The deceitful balances of which men complain in our 
day are unequal freight rates by which one shipper is 
favored at the expense of another. " The making the 
ephah small and the shekel great " which troubles so- 
ciety at present is the payment of unfairly small wages 
to producers, laborers and clerks and charging extor- 
tionate prices to consumers. 

Things cannot be understood merely by looking at 
them in the mass and talking about them in general 
terms. We need specific examples. The botanist 
analyzes one flower at a time and places small pieces of 
cell tissue under his microscope. The physiologist in 
order to understand the skeleton, the muscles and the 
nerves must take some one animal for dissection and 
minute examination. In the recent economic literature 
of this country Mr. Rockefeller has frequently served as 
an example, and no doubt the public discussions of his 
business methods are very unpleasant to him. I de- 
plore needless and irritating personalities and certainly 
do not wish to add to Mr. Rockefeller's annoyances. 
He has many excellent qualities and by his gifts to 
education has been a great public benefactor, and I 
refer to him by name reluctantly and only because it 
seems to me more candid and even more respectful to 
do so than to make any ineffectual pretense at disguise. 
I speak of him only because he is the supreme repre- 
sentative of a very large class of men. Mr. Rocke- 
feller is not a private man. He has made himself a 
kind of king. He levies tribute directly or indirectly 
upon the whole nation, and his policy must be discussed 
as we discuss the policy of the government. 

Perhaps he is no worse than scores of other rich men. 

Let us also charitably believe and admit that many evils 

of which the poor complain are due to the ignorance of 
11—10 



146 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



the rich. Men see their own advantages very clearly 
and often do not personally and keenly feel the effect 
of their conduct upon others. When Mr. Rockefeller 
puts up the price of oil, he is able to calculate pretty 
nearly how many millions of dollars he is to realize by 
the transaction, but he does not see equally clearly how 
that advance in oil is to affect millions of humble homes. 
When illuminating oil doubles in price what are the re- 
sults? I will seek to express them without exaggera- 
tion. (1) Injury to the sight of many school chil- 
dren and other persons who will try to read with insuffi- 
cient light. (2) The diminished education of many 
others who will sit in darkness because they cannot 
afford any light. (3) The lower standard of living 
of many families, because the high price of the neces- 
saries of life obliges them to go without even its sim- 
plest and most desirable comforts. (4) The foster- 
ing of a spirit of bitterness and discontent that bodes 
ill for society. No one can talk much with the poor 
without discovering that many of them are angry and 
embittered by what they consider social injustice. (5) 
The increase of crime. There is an appalling amount 
of crime in the country, and much of it is due to the 
hard conditions in which many people live. (6) Many 
who do not become criminals lose hope and courage and 
live weaker and less effective lives than they would in 
more favorable circumstances. Life is worth little to 
them, and as a consequence they are worth little to the 
state. 

These are a few of the definite and visible results of 
combinations to raise the price of any necessary of life. 
By driving competitors out of business and by charg- 
ing high prices to consumers Mr. Rockefeller has accu- 
mulated an enormous, perhaps an unparalled, fortune. 



THE MESSAGE OF GOD 147 



Perhaps his methods are now strictly within the limits 
of the law. But Mr. Rockefeller is a member of a 
Christian church and whether his methods are illegal 
or not, they are most certainly un-Christian. What- 
ever else the gospel of Christ may stand for, it 
certainly stands for brotherly kindness and helpful- 
ness. " Do unto others as ye would that they should 
do unto you," said Jesus. " Give to him that asketh 
thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not 
thou away," is Christ's command. To feed the hun- 
gry, to clothe the naked, to teach the ignorant, to heal 
the sick, to comfort the sorrowing, to pity the poor, 
and to help the helpless, is what Christ requires of his 
followers. Christ taught his disciples to pray, " Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It is 
Christian duty to diminish the temptations of men, and 
it is most un-Christian to force men into idleness and 
poverty, for idleness and poverty are in themselves al- 
most irresistible temptations to crime. 

Mr. Rockefeller professes to be a Christian; but his 
business methods have been scandalously un-Christian 
and have done much to bring the Christian church into 
contempt and to alienate people from it. 

Jesus was very emphatic in his warnings against 
worldliness and greed. He said to his followers: 
" Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where 
moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through 
and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where 
theives do not break through nor steal; for where your 
treasure is, there will your heart be also." 

It would seem as though the Christian church in its 
wisdom could by personal appeal or by a collective and 
authoritative declaration and action do more than it 



148 THE MESSAGE OF GOD 



is doing to Christianize the business methods of the 
great corporations. Pity for the poor, pity for the 
rich, regard for the welfare of the country and the 
welfare of the church alike require that Christian 
preachers should denounce un-Christian methods of 
making and spending money and should proclaim with 
new emphasis the gospel of Him who taught that it is 
more blessed to give than to receive, and that he who 
would be truly great must be the servant of all. 

The prophecy of Amos, which rolls like a thunder- 
storm over Israel, ends with a rainbow of hope. Let 
us also believe that they are cheering signs that the 
present dark night of materialism will be followed by 
a new dawn of spiritual life and joy. 



THY KINGDOM COME 



Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, 
on earth as it is in heaven. 

The Scriptures tell us that we are saved by faith. 
The farmer plows up the hard ground and sows the 
precious seed because he has full faith that in due time 
his toil and sacrifice will be rewarded. The tiller of the 
soil is an example for us all. We are all sowing seed 
according to the measure of our faith and wisdom in 
the fertile soil of time. Some men of little faith and 
little foresight sow only for the immediate future, some 
more thoughtful sow for their whole earthly life, some 
great prophets and teachers believing that they have 
discovered the plan of God that runs through all the 
ages are sowing for an immortality of blessedness. 
Plato taught the Greeks that every created thing ex- 
isted as an idea in the mind of God before it had a visi- 
ble form. Tennyson puts the Platonic philosophy 
into verse when he tells us that there is 

" One God who ever lives and loves, 
One God, one law, one element 
And one far-off, divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves/' 

The Apostle James expresses it in these words: 
" Known unto God are all his works from the begin- 
ning of the world." The introduction to the fourth 
gospel teaches that Jesus as the incarnate Word, an 
ideal type of humanity, existed in the mind of God from 
the beginning. And Jesus himself taught all his fol- 
lowers to pray " Our Father, who art in heaven ; thy 

149 



150 THY KINGDOM COME 



Kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in 
heaven." Jesus has defined the Kingdom of God for 
us. The subjects of it must be pure in every action 
and in every secret thought, for the Master declared, 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 
The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of peace, for Jesus 
said, Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be 
called the children of God. The Kingdom of God is a 
Kingdom of universal love, for Jesus said, Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you and pray for them 
that despitefully use you and persecute you. The 
Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of service, for Jesus 
said, It is more blessed to give than to receive, and He 
that would be greatest among you, let him be the ser- 
vant of all. Jesus interpreted his doctrine by a life 
of purity and benevolence. He taught, he healed, he 
suffered with faith and patience. He trained disciples 
to work and pray for and expect the establishment of 
the Kingdom of God upon earth. 

No proclamation of liberty, no charter of rights, no 
discovery of science, no system of philosophy, no vision 
of poetry, has so inspired men as the faith of Jesus in 
the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the 
Kingdom of God upon earth. His first proclamation 
of it gathered disciples about him, and the more his dis- 
ciples saw of his life and work the stronger their faith 
in him as a revealer of God's will became. So im- 
pressed were they by his words and character that their 
faith survived even the terrible shock of his unexpected 
and ignominious death, and believing that his spirit 
was still with them they set about the establishment of 
the Kingdom as they understood it. These first dis- 
ciples were Jews and they used the Jewish symbolism 
and the Jewish machinery they were familiar with. It 



THY KINGDOM COME 151 



was their belief that the Messiah must be a descendant 
of David, and in accordance with this belief they la- 
bored to prove that Jesus was the lineal successor of the 
great King. It was their belief that the Messiah 
should open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears 
of the deaf, that he should make the lame to walk, that 
he should heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, 
and in accordance with their interpretation of the glow- 
ing prophecies of old they gathered up and magnified 
the traditional reports of the cures of Jesus that they 
might show that he had perfectly fulfilled all that was 
predicted of him. They read in the book of Daniel 
that the Son of Man was to come with the clouds of 
heaven, and out of this prediction they developed the 
belief that before the generation then living passed 
away Jesus would return to earth to destroy the wicked 
and establish the Kingdom of God. 

But this conception of the Kingdom of God was too 
narrowly Jewish to win the Gentile world and was more- 
over soon discredited by the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the passing of generation after generation without 
the expected return of Jesus. The Jewish conception 
of Christianity gradually died away, but the great hope 
of the Kingdom of God did not on that account perish 
from the earth. It made converts among the Greeks, 
and the Greeks attempted to do by philosophy what 
the Jews had failed to accomplish by poetry and leg- 
end. But the Greek failure was more absolute and 
ignominious than the Jewish. The Greeks developed 
elaborate creeds and involved Christianity in a laby- 
rinth of metaphysical speculation. They changed the 
simple doctrine of the fatherhood of God as taught by 
Jesus into the mysterious dogma of a godhead in three 
persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; but 



152 THY KINGDOM COME 



the godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit is all one; the glory equal; the majesty eternal. 
The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is 
God and yet there are not three Gods but one God, 
and of these and many other equally improbable and 
incomprehensible statements they say, " this faith 
except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without 
doubt he shall perish everlastingly." " This is the 
Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, 
he cannot be saved." Thus the Greeks frittered away 
Christianity into ingenious but empty metaphysical 
speculations which famish the heart and which do not 
even give any solid resting place for the understanding. 

There was a third great power in the ancient world. 
The Romans were less superstitious than the Jews and 
less addicted to metaphysics than the Greeks. They 
were practical men. Their genius was for conquest 
and legislation. The Romans turned Christianity into 
a system of government. They said that Jesus had 
given the keys of heaven and hell to Peter and 
Peter's successors and on the strength of this claim the 
Popes built up a Kingdom wider and stronger and 
more enduring than that of the Caesars. For a thou- 
sand years the church of Rome was the greatest power 
on earth, but though it preserved ancient learning, 
though it civilized the barbarians, though it established 
monasteries in which piety and peaceful industry found 
encouragement, though it built cathedrals and stimu- 
lated the genius of architects and sculptors and paint- 
ers, it did not so purify and uplift society as a whole 
that men might say, The Kingdom of God is come and 
his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Great 
numbers of men remained ignorant and diseased and 
vicious and quarrelsome, and even the Popes themselves 



THY KINGDOM COME 153 



sank under the burden of their authority and became 
corrupt, extortionate and tyrannical, till at last the 
northern nations threw off their intolerable yoke. 

And now the Gaul and the Goth and the Saxon took 
up the task in which Jew and Greek and Roman had 
failed and tried to establish the Kingdom of God upon 
earth. Protestantism rejects a priesthood with power 
to forgive sins and throws every man upon his per- 
sonal responsibility to God, and the earnest preaching 
of that doctrine of immediate accountability to God 
developed a race of saints and heroes who founded free 
churches in free states, and who for the first time in 
the history of the world taught whole nations to read 
and to think, and brought great communities into 
obedience to a higher moral law than had ever pre- 
viously prevailed. But, however great the merits of 
German Lutheranism, of French Calvinism and Eng- 
lish and American Puritanism and of Scottish 
Presbyterianism, it is painfully evident that evangelical 
Protestantism is not a full realization of the Kingdom 
of God upon earth. 

The evangelical Protestant churches are agreed only 
on two principles. They all accept the Bible as a 
supernatural revelation and Jesus Christ as a super- 
human being, an incarnate God. These two principles 
have now been faithfully preached by a succession of 
able and earnest men for nearly four hundred years, 
and after so long and thorough a test we ought to be 
able to form some opinion as to whether the funda- 
mental doctrines of evangelical Protestantism are ever 
likely to become universal. If these doctrines were 
really true, if indeed they were much more probable 
than any others, taught diligently as they have been 
in the church, the school, the home and by a great ex- 



154 THY KINGDOM COME 



pository literature, they would surely by this time have 
won something like general assent. Yet after four 
hundred years of evangelical Protestant interpretation 
of the gospels what do we see? So far from the evan- 
gelical Protestant interpretation of the Scriptures win- 
ning universal assent, we find that Protestantism is 
still waging a drawn battle with Roman Catholicism 
and that the Protestant Episcopal church, the great 
intermediate body, is steadily abandoning the evan- 
gelical theory and gravitating back to the older eccle- 
siastical ritual and dogma. Not only has evangelical 
Protestantism failed to supersede the older types of 
Christianity, it has failed still more conspicuously and 
ignominiously to show that its doctrines are in harmony 
with the natural sciences, with history and with reason. 
The account of the creation in Genesis asserts that the 
earth brought forth grass and trees on the third day 
of creation and that the sun was not made until the 
fourth day. Astronomy teaches that the sun is the 
older body and that the earth was thrown off by it in a 
fluid state. Genesis teaches that the earth was made in 
six days. Geology teaches that the rocks were formed 
by the long-continued action of fire and water and air 
and gravitation, the manner in which these forces now 
operate. Genesis teaches that man and woman were 
made by the immediate act of God, and in his express 
image, with a physical, mental and moral perfection 
which they lost by an act of disobedience. Biology 
teaches that man's body and mind alike have developed 
gradually from lower types. 

The Old and the New Testaments are both full of 
accounts of the violation or suspension of natural law, 
but every modern science assumes as its basis that law 
is absolutely uniform and that like causes in every in- 
stance produce like effects. 



THY KINGDOM COME 



155 



The gospels of Matthew and Luke contain strange 
accounts of the supernatural birth of Jesus, but physi- 
ology gives them no support and history reminds us 
that similar stories, now looked upon as myths, were 
once current in regard to Buddha and Hercules, 
Pythagoras and Plato, Romulus and Alexander the 
Great and many other remarkable men. 

The dogma of an infallible Bible is not only assailed 
from without by all the natural sciences, it is under- 
mined from within by textual and higher criticism. 
In short the old-fashioned, orthodox view that the 
Scriptures are a final revelation of divine truth is every- 
where being replaced by the belief that the Bible is a 
fallible record of the opinions of fallible men. 

The Bible was written by men whose knowledge of 
physical forces, of general history and of the princi- 
ples by which testimony may be sifted and facts ascer- 
tained, was far inferior to that of our own time. The 
science and a great part of the theology of the Bible 
are no longer credible. What the great apostle pre- 
dicted in regard to them when he said " Knowledge 
shall vanish away," has come to pass. He foresaw that 
the body of Christianity would undergo constant 
change and that only faith and hope and love would 
abide forever. 

The wounds of Christendom cannot be healed and 
its warring factions cannot be united by continued in- 
sistence upon incredible dogma. Conscience cannot 
be silenced. Reason cannot be blinded. Compromise 
between truth and error is impossible. There is no 
probability, there is no possibility that men will ever 
come together on the basis of what is known as ortho- 
doxy. 

But happily the decay of the old erroneous the- 



156 THY KINGDOM COME 



ology is preparing the way for the fuller development 
of the vital and permanent principles of Christianity. 
In the first place there has been an amazing change of 
belief in regard to the character of God. Men who 
read the Bible in the old stern literal way found in it a 
doctrine of election by the arbitrary will of God. On 
the strength of their interpretation of the Scriptures 
Calvinistic theologians taught that, irrespective of 
character, some persons were foreordained to eternal 
life and that other persons were foreordained to eter- 
nal death. They read in the Bible that " whosoever 
was not written in the book of life was cast into the 
lake of fire " and they taught that all infidels and all 
the wicked would be tormented for ever in a hell of 
flame, desiring death but kept by omnipotent wrath in 
eternal torture. It is not reasonable to expect men to 
be better than their conceptions of God and such views 
of God naturally led to cruelty and persecution. 

But these hideous and blasphemous libels upon our 
heavenly Father are gradually ceasing. A Methodist 
weekly newspaper comments upon the fact that in 
twelve volumes of Methodist discourses printed during 
the year 1904 there is not one sermon on hell. And 
the Presbyterian church is equally silent on the subject, 
and in difference to the growing spirit of justice and 
mercy has modified its ancient creed and expressly re- 
pudiated the doctrine of arbitrary election and arbi- 
trary reprobation. 

Men are really learning to think of God as a loving 
heavenly Father and as they do so, they are naturally 
drawing together as brothers. One of the most re- 
markable and cheering characteristics of our time is 
the absence of persecution for heresy and the diminu- 
tion of bitterness in theological controversy. It really 



THY KINGDOM COME 157 



seems as though the time was drawing near when men 
will make a more general, a more intelligent, and a more 
successful attempt than ever before to place human 
society upon a Christian basis. 

One hopeful indication is that the world is growing 
to feel that war is an unnecessary and intolerable evil. 
The late war between Russia and Japan has been a 
very great shock to the moral sense of the civilized 
world, and has given an unmistakable impetus to the 
conception that nations, like individuals, should settle 
their differences by peaceful and legal methods and not 
by a test of military strength, involving such a fearful 
loss of life, such crippling and weakening of men by 
wounds and hardships, by privation and disease, such 
wanton destruction of wealth and such wasteful and 
wicked impoverishment of those now living and their 
posterity for many generations. 

We can only judge the future by the past. Evils 
have been very persistent and progress has been pain- 
fully slow, yet great things have been accomplished 
and they are a reasonable ground of hope for greater 
things to come. Starting in savagery the world has 
slowly risen through barbarism to our present stage of 
civilization. Evils as dreadful and apparently as ir- 
remediable and inevitable as war have been got rid of. 
For many ages the world was periodically scourged by 
great famines and succeeding pestilences. In compar- 
ison these are now small and local and infrequent and 
are seen to be unnecessary. It is only a little while ago 
that political tyranny was the rule and political liberty 
the exception, that the mass of men were serfs bound 
to the soil, that class distinctions were very marked and 
permanent, that heavy taxes were imposed by arbitrary 
power, that it was dangerous to complain of a griev- 



158 THY KINGDOM COME 



ance, that men were not even allowed to pray to God 
and worship him in the manner they thought most 
helpful to them and most acceptable to him. The 
world has got rid of famine and pestilence, of 
slavery, of political tyranny and of religious persecu- 
tion, and surely it is not unreasonable to think that it 
will get rid of war and poverty, illiteracy and disease. 

There was a time when reading and writing were un- 
known and when men must communicate either by word 
of mouth or by making rude pictures on skins or 
pieces of bark or by carving them on the smooth sur- 
face of a stone. The alphabet is perhaps the greatest 
and most useful of all the inventions of man, and rep- 
resents a most extraordinary advance in power to think 
and to acquire and to diffuse knowledge. A race that 
has invented the alphabet and has acquired the arts of 
reading and writing may reasonably be expected to 
make further and still more wonderful progress. The 
power to read and write is now very common among 
men; and, though, like all other instruments and op- 
portunities, the power to read and write is often neg- 
lected or misused, yet there is no reason to doubt that 
the general effect is to increase the average amount of 
knowledge and the average power of thought. Men 
who habitually read and write usually come in course of 
time into possession of the most important facts of 
natural science, of history and of political and social 
economy. Our popular education is as yet very super- 
ficial, but it is a prophecy of something much better by 
and by. Men who have learned to read may be expected 
to think, and to discover the truth of the words of Paul 
" the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 

So we come back to the thought that the day is 
drawing nearer when the people will interpret Chris- 



THY KINGDOM COME 159 



tianity in the spirit of its founder and will see that it 
consists, not in creeds, however useful a correct creed 
statement may be, not in sacraments, however valuable 
an appropriate symbol may be, but in purity, in peace, 
in love and in service. 

Man is essentially a religious being and must for his 
happiness have before him some great ideal of duty. 
What might not be reasonably expected if all the in- 
tellect and all the conscience in the world accepted the 
ideals of Jesus Christ and counted no man good unless 
he loved his neighbor as himself and not only refrained 
from injuring others but exerted his whole power for the 
common good. 

If by any possibility, all the intelligence and all the 
energy of men could be turned toward helping one 
another, who can even imagine the greatness of human 
progress? 

A Kingdom of God upon earth ! A time of univer- 
sal peace among nations, of universal goodwill among 
men! Why may not the time come when no man or 
woman or child in all the world shall suffer for lack 
of food or clothes or shelter or education, when no 
heart shall hunger in vain for love and sympathy; 
when there shall be no paupers, no criminals, no weak 
or sick or diseased or insane; when the whole world 
shall be filled with healthy, happy, intelligent and vir- 
tuous people, people who are living upon the earth as 
rationally and righteously as we conceive that the an- 
gels live in heaven? Such a vision as that has floated 
before the minds of good men in many ages and many 
nations. It was taught by the Jewish prophets, and 
was announced and expected by Jesus Christ who 
taught all his disciples to pray, " Our Father who art 
in heaven, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in 
earth as it is in heaven." 



PRAISE 

Men worship according to their conception of the 
nature of the powers higher than themselves. When 
men believed in many gods, it was natural to suppose 
that the gods were only magnified men, that they needed 
what men needed and would be pleased with what 
pleases men. Accordingly, in primitive ages the wor- 
ship of the gods consisted chiefly in gifts to them of 
food and drink, of incense, of candles, of the instru- 
ments of industry and the weapons of war. Their sup- 
posed forms were carved in stone or ivory, or cast in 
bronze, or decked with rich drapery and their shrines 
were adorned with gold and silver and precious jewels. 
Men were grateful for the soft sunshine and gentle 
showers that made the earth fertile and beautiful. 
They were terrified at the fierce heats of summer and the 
biting cold of winter, at the droughts, the famines and 
the fevers, at the darkness and the storm. Thus stim- 
ulated by every motive of hope and fear, men did their 
utmost to propitiate the higher powers before whom 
they were helpless and on whom they were wholly de- 
pendent. They offered in sacrifice not only the choicest 
of their flocks and herds, not only their prisoners of 
war and slaves, but even their sons and daughters, the 
strongest youths and the fairest maidens. Primitive 
men were very earnest and importunate worshipers. 
When they were stirred by some great fear or great 
hope, they cried aloud to the gods to give them some 
visible sign of favor or to utter some audible response 
to their petition. When they received no answer, they 
redoubled their cries, danced around the altar, leaped 

160 



PRAISE 



161 



upon it, cut themselves with knives and slew victim 
after victim, until something occurred which the priests 
interpreted as a favorable omen. 

The great prophets of Israel taught the world bet- 
ter. They taught the unity and holiness of God, and 
proclaimed that justice and mercy were the only neces- 
sary or acceptable sacrifices. Jesus taught us that God 
is a spirit and that they who worship him must worship 
him in spirit and in truth. Christian worship consists 
of prayer, praise, and moral and spiritual instruction; 
and there are people who seriously doubt or positively 
deny the utility and propriety of some or all of these 
simple religious exercises. There are those for in- 
stance who say that to sing hymns of praise to God is 
as unnecessary and foolish as to bring him offerings 
of meat and drink. The primitive worshipers who 
brought meat and drink to their God showed that they 
thought of him as weak and necessitous like themselves ; 
the critics of our modern worship say that when we 
sing praises to God we represent him as an earthly 
King of an ignoble sort, an Oriental despot who re- 
quires servility and must be kept in good humor by 
constant adulation. Perhaps there is a measure of 
truth in these criticisms. Perhaps many of our pray- 
ers and praises reveal in us a very low and imperfect 
conception of God's nature. Nevertheless I cannot but 
think that however mistaken and worthless and even 
offensive our words may be in themselves, if it is our 
sincere desire to show our love and gratitude, they are 
well-pleasing unto God. How could it be otherwise? 
Surely God does not spurn the feeblest and humblest 
sincere endeavor to please him. I read a story once of 
a poor Arab who found in the desert a spring of cool 
clear water, such as he had never drunk before. He 
11—11 



162 



PRAISE 



filled his leathern bottle with it and toiled long over the 
hot sands that he might show his loyalty by bringing 
the precious liquid to the Caliph. The man told his 
story and offered his gift. The Caliph drank and 
praised the water, but gave none of it to any one else, 
declaring that it was all reserved for his own use, and 
sent the man away with a munificent reward. When 
the poor Arab was gone, the Caliph's courtiers asked 
him about the wonderful water and why he had allowed 
none of them even to taste it, and the King replied, 
" The water was a precious gift as showing the poor 
man's good will; but the long time it had been in the 
leathern bottle had made it offensive, and I feared that 
if I let any one else taste it, he might by some exclama- 
tion or gesture of disgust show the man that his gift 
was spoiled and worthless, and that would have been a 
pity, for his purpose was to please." So, according to 
the eastern apologue, spoke the wise and magnanimous 
Caliph, and is it not a fitting parable of the way in 
which the King of Kings receives our feeble and im- 
perfect service. 

Every earthly parent values highly the little tokens 
of his children's affection, the scrawling, ill-spelt letter 
in which the schoolboy sends his love to father and 
mother, the handkerchief or bit of embroidery the 
young girl makes as a surprise, or the book or picture 
the little ones club their pocket money to buy. 

Is it not reasonable, is it not certain that the heart of 
the heavenly Father yearns for the love of his children 
just as the heart of an earthly parent does? Man 
finds his highest pleasure not in his senses, not in his in- 
tellect, but in his affections and does not God also find 
his highest pleasure in loving and being loved? The 
noble poem on the creation with which the Bible begins 



PRAISE 



163 



tells us that looking upon the world God pronounced 
it very good, and the one hundred and fourth psalm 
which is a magnificent enumeration of the wonders and 
beauties of the earth and sea and sky concludes the 
glowing description with the words, " The glory of the 
Lord shall endure forever: the Lord shall rejoice in his 
works." Yes, we may well believe that the Arch-archi- 
tect rejoices as he sees the temple of beauty he has 
builded, that the Master Painter rejoices in the light 
and the darkness, in the rainbow and in the cloud. 
Nevertheless, I speak it reverently, it should seem to 
me that art for art's sake, power for power's sake, wis- 
dom that is merely intellectual, would be as powerless to 
give God perfect joy as they are to give perfect joy to 
man. Like man, God must find his highest pleasure in 
doing good, in loving and in being loved in return. 
The poet Keats in that noble poem upon Hyperion, 
which begins so majestically that in despair of com- 
pleting it worthily, he left it unfinished, speaks of those 
acts of benificence, by which " Deity supreme doth 
ease its heart of love." The central principle of re- 
ligion, the summing up of the law, the prophets and the 
gospel is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart; but surely the validity of that command 
rests upon the fact that God loves infinitely. That is 
the truth which the early church sought to express 
when it said, God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him 
might not perish but have everlasting life. We love 
him because he first loved us. Though the Lord re- 
joices in his inanimate works, his highest satisfaction 
is not in them but in his sons and daughters made in 
his own image, who, as best they can, are " thinking 
his thoughts after him " and learning to know and love 



164 



PRAISE 



him as their heavenly Father. As the ancient psalmist 
said, " The Lord taketh pleasure in his people. The 
Lord's portion is his people. The Lord taketh pleas- 
ure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his 
mercy." 

The doctrine that runs through the Bible is that 
God is love and that he finds his joy in manifesting his 
love to us, and the correlative doctrine is that we should 
love him and find our joy in showing our love to him. 

How are we to show our love to God? By keeping 
his commandments and especially by showing love to 
our fellow men. Well does the apostle say : " He that 
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he 
love God whom he hath not seen ? 99 And in that won- 
derful picture of the final judgment we are told that 
the Judge will declare, " Inasmuch as ye fed or clothed 
or ministered unto the least of these my brethren, ye 
did it unto me." The object of all religion is to secure 
right conduct. All other things are secondary and 
relatively unimportant. Our first duty is to show our 
love to God by obeying his commands and doing faith- 
fully whatever work he has committed to us. But love 
can show itself only imperfectly through obedience to 
definite commands, for outward obedience may spring 
from fear as well as from love. Love must show itself 
in voluntary acts. Love shows itself in the alacrity 
and joy with which duty is done, and in the desire not 
merely to obey the wish of the loved one but to an- 
ticipate it. Love shows itself in the manner of our 
actions as much as in the acts themselves. It shows 
itself not in our work only, but in our words and looks. 
This is just as true of love to God as of love to man. 
Where faith in God exists, where gratitude to him is 
felt, there songs of praise rise spontaneously from the 



PRAISE 



165 



heart, and are we believe acceptable offerings to God. 
It is a sublime thought that our sincere songs of love 
and gratitude bring joy to the infinite God. But beau- 
tiful as is that belief, it is in the nature of the case only 
a belief and cannot be positively proved. But that 
music and song are of inestimable value to man is uni- 
versally recognized. 

Singing is one of the healthiest of all exercises. The 
breath is the life. Singing fills the lungs with life- 
giving air, purifies the blood and invigorates the frame. 

Music and song are among the purest and noblest 
sources of pleasure, and whatever gives innocent pleas- 
ure should be encouraged, for innocent pleasures are 
the greatest safeguards against vicious ones. That 
music promotes virtue is the teaching of the wisest men, 
Shakespeare tells us that the man 

" Who loveth not the concord of sweet sounds 
Is fit for treasons, strategems and spoils; 
Let no such man be trusted." 

And Goethe in the same strain says : 

'* Wo man singt da lass dich ruhig neider, 
Bose meuschen haben keine lieder." 

Or as we may freely render it, 

" 'Mid those who sing, fear not to suffer wrong, 
The virtuous only know the joy of song." 

Music is one of God's great agents by which to cure 
disease. Ever since the harp of David drove away the 
melancholy and healed the madness of Saul, music has 
been recognized as one of the most effective and im- 
portant means of cheering the despondent and restoring 
the tone of those whose nerves have been unstrung. 



166 



PRAISE 



The wise Greeks, in that wonderful symbolic religion 
which we now call mythology, made Apollo, the god of 
music and poetry, also the god of medicine and healing. 

But song not only cures disease, but prevents it. 
Song is the natural expression of emotion, and in every 
joy and in every sorrow we should sing. A wise poet 
says : 

" A millstone and the human heart 
Are driven ever round, 
If both have nothing else to grind, 
Both must themselves be ground.'* 

The same law governs our emotional as our physical 
life. Whatever does not find proper outward expres- 
sion, reacts injuriously upon the inner life. The sage 
and serious Spenser said: 

" He oft finds medicine who his grief imparts." 

Wordsworth suffering from despondency declares: 

" A timely utterance gave my heart relief." 

The taciturn and songless keep their nerves at too 
great a tension. They lose many of the joys of life, 
bear many unnecessary burdens, dwell amid the shad- 
ows, while those who sing, live, like the birds, in the 
freer and sunnier atmosphere of joy and love. 

Singing is peculiarly helpful in religious worship. 
It is the part of the service in which all can most appro- 
priately and effectively unite. Silent communion has 
its great value and impressiveness, as the history of the 
Society of Friends abundantly demonstrates. Congre- 
gational responses help to make worship a collective 
act. But the singing affords opportunity for a fuller 
and richer religious fellowship. Singing together 
makes people of one heart and of one mind. As the 



PRAISE 



167 



great flywheel of an engine transforms the intermittent 
and violent jerks of the piston rod into equable and 
persistent motion, so congregational singing corrects 
the irregularities of individual feeling and brings them 
into helpful unity. Each contributes something to the 
general effect and each in turn receives a thrill of sym- 
pathy and impulse of power from the chorus of hearts 
and voices. 

People get a very large and important part of their 
religious education from the singing. The hymn book 
is the popular manuel of theology. Holy George Her- 
bert said very truly : 

" A verse may find him who a sermon flies." 

My intention is not to underrate the power and value 
of preaching. A sermon always has an effect propor- 
tioned to its truth, clearness, beauty and earnestness. 
People always have been and always will be influenced 
by spoken words. In the beautiful figure of the an- 
cient prophet, " As the rain and snow come down 
from heaven and water the earth and make it fruitful, 
so shall it be with the word that goeth forth out of my 
mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but shall 
accomplish that whereunto I send it." In the same way 
the Apostle Paul magnifies the power of simple, 
straight-forward speech when he declares that, " It 
pleased God by preaching to save them that believe." 
Any truth that is plainly and persistently declared to 
men will gradually win its way among honest and in- 
telligent hearers. But while spoken truth marches 
along with steady and resistless progress, truth united 
with poetry and music has wings that bear it to swift 
and triumphant success. Good listeners, even the best 
of listeners, remember very little of the ordinary ser- 



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mon, because its language is explanatory and diffuse 
and memory abhors platitude. The mind seizes upon 
and treasures up only the orator's few winged words, 
his occasional short, pithy, epigrammatic or poetic 
turns of phrase. But a good lyric sings itself into the 
soul and every word of it is prized because every word 
is precious. Longfellow's familiar poem of the Arrow 
and the Song is true of hundreds and hundreds of 
hymns. 

" I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; ' 
For so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song? 

Long, long afterward in an oak 
I found the arrow still unbroke; 
And the song from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend." 

Many hymns are clear, concise and comprehensive 
statements of doctrine. They condense whole libraries 
of controversy into a few lofty and harmonious phrases. 
When in the early church popular enthusiasm deified 
Jesus, philosophical theologians employed all the sub- 
tleties of metaphysics in elaborating Christian doc- 
trine, and the result was the Athanasian creed. But 
the Athanasian creed is incomprehensible, diffuse, cold 
and repellant, and has had very little direct influence 
upon the masses of men. For the actual belief of the 
early church we must look at the impressive chant, com- 



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169 



monly called the Apostles' Creed, or at the Te Deum 
Laudamus, the most sublime of all anthems of Christian 
praise. And what the Te Deum Laudamus was to the 
early and mediaeval church, that in large measure the 
long metre doxology of Thomas Ken has been to the 
Angelican and Evangelical churches. Ken was a good 
scholar and a man of sterling character. He was so 
faithful in rebuking the vices of the licentious Charles 
the Second that that monarch, who, with all his vices, 
was a man of strong common sense, showed his recogni- 
tion of Ken's courage and sincerity by making him a 
bishop. Ken was a laborious and faithful preacher 
and published several volumes of sermons; but all his 
sermons are dead and forgotten, while his doxology is 
still sung wherever the English language is used in 
worship : 

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him all creatures here below, 
Praise him above, ye heavenly host, 
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." 

The tune commonly called Old Hundred from its use 
in an early metrical version of the 100th psalm, is 
inseparably associated with the doxology; its solemn 
and magnificent harmony has contributed to the won- 
derful popularity of Bishop Ken's ascription of praise. 

The author of a recent popular book on Famous 
Hymns asserts that no other form of words, whether 
poetry or prose — excepting only the prayer which 
Jesus taught his disciples — is so frequently used by 
English-speaking Christians, and Theodore Parker de- 
clared that these four lines by Bishop Ken had done 
more to familiarize the English-speaking peoples of the 
earth with the doctrine of the Trinity than all the theo- 
logical books ever written. 



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As this hymn has been the chief instrument in spread- 
ing orthodoxy, it is now one of the strongest agents in 
preserving a decaying theology. The doctrine of the 
Trinity is a mere survival of an extinct science and a 
dead philosophy. The intellectual battle against Trin- 
itarianism has been won. The facts of physical science 
and the principles of the higher criticism of the Bible 
are slowly becoming known. The pure and spiritual 
religion of Jesus, which scarcely left its cradle in 
Judaea before it was overlaid and corrupted by Pagan 
superstitions, will gradually be purged of those im- 
purities, and by a strict recognition of the unity of 
the divine nature, men will obtain a clearer and nobler 
conception of God, and by a full and implicit belief in 
the humanity of Jesus will obtain a higher and more 
helpful conception of the possibilities of human nature. 

I believe that Jesus would not and could not have 
sung Bishop Ken's doxology. He would have shrunk 
from it as blasphemy. When he was asked which 
commandment was the greatest he replied, Hear, O 
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. The first of 
the ten commandments is: Thou shalt have no other 
gods before me. The words do not mean, Thou shalt 
not set any other god above me, but, Thou shalt not 
bring any other so-called god into my presence, thou 
shalt not set up any idol in my sanctuary, thou shalt 
not in any way assert or recognize the existence of any 
other being as God. When any one comes to see 
that the Holy Spirit is not a distinct personality but 
is another name for God himself, just as the spirit of 
man is another name for man, when a man becomes 
convinced that Jesus never for a moment claimed 
equality with God, but prayed to his Father in heaven 
just as he taught his disciples to pray, — then Bishop 



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171 



Ken's doxology offends his reason and his conscience; 
he cannot any longer use it in worship, but values 
it only as a historic landmark and work of imagination, 
or modifies its phraseology so as to adapt it to his 
changed conceptions. It is notorious that in Catholic 
countries the altars dedicated to God are less popular 
than the shrines of Mary and Joseph and Peter and 
Paul and John. So among many Protestants hymns 
in praise of God the Father are sung with less en- 
thusiasm than those which exalt the merits of Jesus. 
A good test of whether one has entered intellectually 
and emotionally into a different spirit of religion can 
be found in his attitude toward the new version of 
Ken's doxology: 

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him all creatures here below: 
Praise him, ye angels round the throne, 
Praise God, the high and holy One." 

In the new version as in the old, all men and all 
angels are called upon to praise God. The metre is 
the same, the tune is the same. The only difference 
is in the conception of God. He is no longer Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, but " the high and holy One," 
the sole fountain of power and wisdom and love, the 
God and Father of all alike, infinitely exalted, all- 
holy. 

Emerson in his Bohemian hymn tells us: 

" In many forms we try 
To utter God's infinity, 
But the Boundless hath no form 
And the universal Friend 
Doth as far transcend 
An angel as a worm." 



172 PRAISE 

Man is a rational being, and in the long run the 
conclusions of his reason are always accepted ; but those 
conclusions win their way far more rapidly when they 
receive the full support of the imagination and the 
emotions. It is not enough to know. Men must feel, 
they must symbolize, they must sing. In singing 
praises unto God we not only offer a sacrifice accept- 
able to him, but we purify and exalt our spirits and 
use one of the most effective instruments at our com- 
mand to win others to the love and service of the 
heavenly Father. Truly whoso offereth praise glori- 
fieth God. 



PERSECUTION 



Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and perse- 
cute you, and shall say all manner of evil against 
you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding 
glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so per- 
secuted they the prophets which were before you. 
Matt. V, 11, 12. 

We are all influenced more by example than by 
precept, and especially by the example of those whose 
occupation, character and purposes are like our own. 
The lawyer who is well read in the history of his pro- 
fession, one whose enthusiasm has been kindled by his 
acquaintance with the intellectual achievements and 
the moral dignity of the great jurists, one who has 
seen how wise legislation builds up a nation and how 
upright and intelligent courts of justice preserve the 
liberty, the property and the happiness of a people, 
one whose soul has been stirred with these thoughts 
as he has read the lives of Coke and Eldon and Mans- 
field, of Marshall and Story, will naturally desire to 
maintain the best precedents of his profession and 
imitate the virtues of its greatest men. 

The soldier and sailor seek their inspiration in mili- 
tary and naval annals. What other heroes of war 
have dared and done they wish in turn to be able to 
dare and do. They seek to show the originality in 
planning their manoeuvres and campaigns, the daring 
in attack, the fortitude in defeat, the endurance in 
privation which they have admired in others. 

The victors of Thermoplyae and Marathon are still 
the unseen auxiliaries of every patriot army. Wash- 

173 



174. 



PERSECUTION 



ington and Grant to the end of time will march at 
the head of American regiments. Paul Jones and 
Perry and Farragut and Dewey will forever sail with 
American fleets. Bruce and Wallace, Emmett and 
Moore, Cromwell and Milton, Jefferson and Lincoln 
being dead yet speak with deathless voices and call 
upon all future generations to love and serve the land 
of their birth. 

What is true of the lawyer, the soldier, the sailor, 
and the patriot is equally true of the reformer, the 
philanthropist, the scholar, the inventor, the poet and 
the artist; and as a man inspires men by his example 
so a woman rouses women to emulation. Mary the moth- 
er of Jesus, Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, Mrs. 
Wesley, Joan of Arc, Saint Catherine and St. Theresa, 
as models of piety and zeal; Elizabeth Barret Brown- 
ing, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Marian Evans as lit- 
erary geniuses and Florence Nightingale and Frances 
Willard as philanthropists, have, each in her own way, 
revealed woman's power to women, and each inspired 
innumerable followers to high ambition and noble 
achievement. 

All who live noble lives are roused to noble endeavor 
by the great achievements of their predecessors, and 
all consciously or unconsciously pray that " some 
spark of the celestial fire " may in turn fall upon them 
and that they too may do deeds by which they may 
be equalled in renown with the worthies of the past. 

It was in this way that the imagination of Jesus 
was uplifted and his heart was made to burn within 
by the lives of the prophets of Israel. In this se- 
cluded village home, remote from the great cities with 
their architectural splendors, their wealth and com- 
merce, he grew up indifferent to and almost ignorant 



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of the lives of lawyers and soldiers, of scholars and 
inventors and artists, so that all the enthusiasm of his 
intense nature was concentrated upon the one class of 
great men with whose lives he was well acquainted. 
From the beginning to the end of his public life it is 
evident that Jesus classed himself with the prophets 
and was seeking to follow their example. Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and as 
the prophets filled the heart of Jesus, so words about 
them filled his tongue. When he preached in the 
synagogue at Nazareth, and was rejected there, he 
said, " A prophet is not without honor except in his 
own country and among his own kin and in his 
own house." When he was asked about his immediate 
predecessor Jesus answered, " Among those that are 
born of women there is not a greater than John the 
Baptist. v In announcing his own mission and purpose 
he said, " Think not that I am come to destroy the law 
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to 
fulfill." He warns men to repent of their sins and to 
strive to enter in at the strait gate and tells them 
that " there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth 
when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and 
all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you your- 
selves thrust out." He pronounces a woe upon the 
Scribes and Pharisees because while they reject living 
messengers of God they pay hypocritical honors to 
dead ones, because they build the tombs of the prophets 
and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous ; and as 
emphatic as the woe he pronounces upon those who 
reject the prophets is his benediction upon those who 
welcome them and promote their work. He encour- 
aged his disciples by saying, " He that receiveth you 
receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him 



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that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the 
name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward." 

And more even than any of these utterances, the 
words of our text illustrate the thought and feeling 
of Jesus in regard to the prophets. These words are 
the last of the eight beatitudes and the climax of them 
all. Jesus had pronounced blessed the poor, the 
mourners, the meek, the merciful, the pure and the 
peacemakers, and had assured them all of God's ap- 
probation, saying that in due time their desires shall 
be fulfilled; but when Jesus speaks of those who are 
persecuted for righteousness' sake, as he recalls the 
sufferings and triumphs of the prophets in the past, 
he is more deeply moved than before and prononuces 
an even richer benediction upon those who shall be 
their successors and like them suffer and triumph in 
a righteous cause. The other benedictions seem al- 
most tame in comparison with this triumphant paean 
of joy and victory. " Blessed are ye when men shall 
revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil 
against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be 
exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: 
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before 
you." 

Do you wonder as you read these words and as you 
remember the example of him who spoke them that 
Christianity has in every age had its martyrs who have 
gone firmly and triumphantly to exile, to prison, and 
to death. Christianity conquered the Pagan religions 
and Greece and Rome by its martyrs rather than by 
its preachers. It was not so much the intellect as the 
heart of antiquity that was won over. Argument 
could be met and was met by argument, but to the 
multitudes of men and women willing to seal their 
testimony with their blood there was no answer. 



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Jesus said to his disciples, " Behold I send you forth 
as sheep in the midst of wolves " ; and what a marvel 
it is that the sheep survived all the attacks made upon 
them. After the disciples began to recover from the 
dismay and hopelessness into which the crucifixion 
of their Master had thrown them, after their hopes 
revived and their faith grasped the doctrine of im- 
mortality and they began to believe that Jesus had 
risen and entered into his glory, they met together 
to carry on his work and to preach his gospel. The 
book of Acts tells us that the whole company of the 
disciples at this time consisted of about 120 persons, 
and this feeble band of poor and unlearned men and 
women had before it the task of converting the world. 
What a task it was! They had not to carry some 
abstract truth that would not offend or injure any 
one, but a doctrine that struck at the dignities of 
kings, at the power and revenues of priests, at the 
credit of philosophers, and that restrained the pleas- 
ures and rebuked the vices of the multitude. 

As was to be expected the first evidence of hostility 
came from the priests. When Stephen preached 
Christ, those who had crucified the Master stoned to 
death the faithful disciple. Soon after this the apos- 
tles were brought before the great council of the Jews 
and the high priest asked them, " Did not we strictly 
command you that ye should not teach in this name? 
and behold ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine 
and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." At the 
intercession of Gamaliel their lives were spared, but 
the angry council to enforce its warning caused the 
apostles to be beaten. The hostility of Jewish priests 
was inspired by a zeal for the law of Moses which was 
quickened by their personal dislikes and fears. In 
11—12 



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the same way the zeal of Pagan priests for their altars 
was sharpened by self-interest. 

Paganism, like every other religion, had its de- 
votees. Men and women would not have poured out 
their money to build the great Pagan temples if 
they had not had strong feelings of devotion. They 
would not have thronged these great temples, as they 
did, if they had not felt that in some way their souls 
were helped and strengthened by these forms of wor- 
ship. The great temple of Diana at Ephesus is one 
of the best known, as it was the largest of Greek tem- 
ples. Its length was 425 feet and its width 220 feet. 
It had 128 columns each 60 feet high. But even 
more wonderful than the temple itself were the num- 
berless statues and pictures by the greatest masters 
which it contained. If history had not recorded that 
the women gave their jewels and ornaments of gold 
to increase the building fund the fact that such a 
temple was ever built would show that the worship 
of Diana appealed very strongly to the hearts of the 
people. 

It was a bold undertaking for the Apostle Paul to 
go into the city of Ephesus and under the shadow of 
the great temple of Diana to declare publicly that an 
idol was nothing in the world, and that there was no 
other name given under heaven or among men whereby 
they must be saved except the name of a man who a 
few years ago had been crucified at Jerusalem as a 
malefactor. Yet Paul preached Christ at Ephesus 
and won many converts, and in the nature of the case 
aroused fierce opposition. The devotees of Diana con- 
sidering his preaching blasphemous, and the priests 
of the temple and all who were in any way dependent 
upon the temple worship for their livelihood, were 



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179 



angry and alarmed. The book of Acts tells us that 
a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who 
made models of the temple of Diana and brought no 
small gain to the workmen, called together those of 
like occupation and said unto them, " Sirs, ye know 
that by this occupation we have our wealth. More- 
over ye see and hear not alone at Ephesus but almost 
throughout all Asia Minor, this Paul hath persuaded 
and turned away many people, saying that there are no 
gods which are made with hands: so that not only 
this our occupation is in danger to be set at naught ; but 
also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should 
be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all 
Asia and the world worshipeth." And when they heard 
these sayings they were full of wrath, and cried out, 
saying, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." There 
was a great riot and as a result Paul was obliged to 
leave the city and go into Macedonia. 

But the persecution at Ephesus was as nothing to 
that which soon after occurred at Rome. In the year 
64 a.d., the tenth of the reign of Nero, there was a 
great fire in Rome, which burnt down two-thirds of 
the city. The temples, the palaces, and the splendid 
trophies of the Roman victories over the Gauls and 
Carthaginians, were all alike destroyed. The fire was 
believed to have been started by incendiaries, and the 
Christians were accused of the awful crime. The mob 
demanded vengeance and victims, and Nero, who had 
also been accused of the crime, was only too willing to 
avert suspicion from himself by punishing the inno- 
cent and helpless. Tacitus gives a terrible account of 
their sufferings. " Some were nailed on crosses ; others 
sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed to 
the fury of dogs; others again smeared over with 



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combustible materials, were used as torches to light 
up the gardens of Nero. They died in torments and 
their torments were embittered by insult and derision." 

Tacitus says further that the Christians were con- 
victed not so much for the crime of setting fire to the 
city as for their hatred of the whole human race. 
Tacitus was a man of noble character and a his- 
torian of the strictest integrity, and this misrepre- 
sentation of the character of the Christians merely 
shows that very wise and very good men are some- 
times dreadfully mistaken. Tacitus was not alone 
among the learned, but expressed the common opinion 
of his class. Pliny the younger, one who judged by 
Pagan standards was both intelligent and humane, 
speaks of Christianity as a pestilent superstition, and 
Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, Galen, and Epictetus, all 
good and wise men, preferred Pagan philosophy to 
Christian theology. 

But we need not go outside the Bible itself for 
testimony as to the bad reputation of the early Chris- 
tians, for the Apostle Paul himself declares in his epis- 
tle to the Corinthians that he and his associates were 
looked upon as the filth of the world and the offscour- 
ing of all things. 

Knowing as we do the actual character of Paul and 
his converts we are amazed at these misconceptions. 
But history repeats itself, and it will help us to under- 
stand the mistakes of the past if we look at those 
of the present. China is a poor and an overpopulated 
country and in consequence many new-born children 
are abandoned by their criminal or overburdened par- 
ents. As in other backward countries, there are also 
frequent famines and pestilences which take many chil- 
dren orphans. These children whom the inhumanity 



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181 



of heathenism would only too often leave to perish are 
in many instances picked up by Christian mission- 
aries and cared for in orphanages. They receive good 
nursing and tender care; but nursing and care often 
come too late and many of these little ones, enfeebled 
by exposure and hunger, die in the orphanages, and 
then the very humanity of the missionaries is perverted 
into a crime and they are accused of having murdered 
those whom they were endeavoring to rescue. Noth- 
ing is too monstrous for ignorant and superstitious 
people to believe and the ignorant populace are told 
that the missionaries gather these children and kill 
them in order to use their bodies in preparing medi- 
cines. 

The early Christians were encompassed by a similar 
atmosphere of ignorance, prejudice and superstition. 
Every horrible vice and every infamous crime, 
" QEdipean marriages and Thyestean banquets," were 
laid to their charge, and every calamity that visited 
a city or country was supposed to be due to the anger 
of the gods because the old religions were neglected 
and these impious criminals were allowed to live. 
Whatever was the calamity, fire or flood or drought, 
the wickedness of the Christians was alleged as the 
cause and their punishment was demanded. Tertul- 
lian, one of the early Christian fathers, says: " Let the 
Tiber overflow its banks, let the Nile fail to inundate 
the country, let the heavens be of brass, let famine 
or pestilence visit the land, and at once the cry is 
raised : The Christians to the lions." 

But times of misfortunes were not more perilous 
to the early church than times of rejoicing. Pagan- 
ism was fond of festivals and at every festival sacri- 
fices were offered to the gods and incense burned before 



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the statue of the emperor. Tertullian counseled 
Christians to keep away from these celebrations, and 
to weep when their Pagan neighbors were rejoicing 
that they might rejoice when the Pagans wept. 

The refusal of divine honors to the emperors ex- 
posed the Christians to especial peril as this act was 
a test not only of piety but of loyalty. The Chris- 
tians remembering the words of J esus, " Render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the 
things that are God's," were ready to pay their taxes 
and to support the state in all secular matters, but 
resolutely refused to burn incense to the emperor's 
statue or to utter words that in any way acknowledged 
his divinity. Their scruples were like those of the 
early Quakers who spoke of first day and second day 
rather than Sunday and Monday because they would 
not even indirectly worship the sun and the moon, and 
spoke of first month and second month rather than 
January and February because Janus was a pagan 
deity and Februa was a pagan festival, and to name 
months after these was a form of idolatry. 

Some of the most sanguinary persecutions were due 
to the jealousy of the emperors and their dread of 
disloyalty. Lenient and humane emperors who were 
willing to allow Christians to worship in their own 
way in private, yet insisted that they must take the 
customary oaths and perform the customary public 
ceremonies. It was in vain for a Christian to reply, 
I will pray to God for the emperor but I cannot offer 
a sacrifice to him, for that is to give to a man an honor 
due only to God. Such an answer was frequent and 
was commonly regarded as treason and punished by 
death. 

By the fear of death the fortitude of many Chris- 



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183 



tians was overcome, and they saved their lives by offer- 
ing Pagan sacrifices and by abjuring Christ. Others 
who shrank from such dreadful apostasy saved them- 
selves, in what seems like a very modern manner, by 
paying for police protection and securing a fake cer- 
tificate that they had offered the required sacrifices. 
Sometimes the authorities spared the lives of Chris- 
tians but condemned them to exile, to imprisonment 
or to labor as slaves in the mines. 

Sometimes the Pagan persecutions were directed 
against the spread of Christianity rather than the 
punishment of its professors. The edict of Diocletian 
enacted that all Christian churches, in all the provinces 
of the Roman empire, should be demolished to their 
foundations and that the bishops and presbyters should 
deliver all their sacred books into the hands of the 
magistrates, who were commanded under the severest 
penalties to burn them in a public and solemn man- 
ner. By the same edict all Christians were put beyond 
the protection of the law. The judges were author- 
ized to hear and to determine every action that was 
brought against Christians, but Christians were not 
permitted to complain of any injury which they them- 
selves had suffered. 

It is true that persecution was not at all times of 
equal intensity, and sometimes ceased altogether in 
particular localities; yet for three hundred years, to 
be a Christian was to belong to an inferior and in- 
sulted class, to be ineligible to the offices of state 
and to be exposed to the caprices of magistrates and 
the violence of mobs, and at times to undergo a fiery 
trial and pass through a great fight of afflictions. 

As there were ten plagues in Egypt and as the 
beast spoken of in the book of Revelations had ten 



184 



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horns, so some of the Christian fathers assert that 
there were ten general persecutions; but while these 
analogies may be fanciful and misleading, the fact re- 
mains that the church went through repeated and 
dreadful persecutions and numbered her martyrs by 
thousands. 

But the faith, the patience, the courage, the en- 
thusiasm of the Christians conquered in the end; in 
the year 313 Christianity was adopted as the religion 
of the state, and Christians were made eligible to all 
offices in the service of the government. Not only 
so, but Paganism was now proscribed, Pagans were 
disqualified for high positions, and a profession of 
Christianity became the recognized pathway to pro- 
motion. 

The corrupting influence of official patronage was 
in reality a far greater injury to Christianity than the 
previous persecutions had been. Great multitudes of 
the selfish and ambitious now flocked into the church. 
They became Christians in name, but they were Pagans 
and worldlings at heart. Paganism, being deprived 
both of official patronage and popular favor, quickly 
sank into decay and Pagan temples were in very many 
instances transformed into Christian churches. To 
make the transformation the more easy and agreeable 
to the former Pagan worshipers, the churches were 
very little remodeled, the statues not being removed 
but renamed. Thus a statue of Diana, the Pagan 
conception of maidenly purity, might be made to rep- 
resent Mary in her girlhood, and a statue of Juno, 
the Pagan ideal of matronly dignity, was often re- 
baptized as the figure of Mary after she became a 
mother. In the same way the figure of Apollo, the 
Pagan ideal of masculine grace and beauty, was fitly 



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185 



renamed as St. John, the fair and youthful disciple 
whom Jesus loved, and Jupiter, the majestic ruler of 
the heathen Pantheon, served as a proper emblem of 
St. Peter, the chief of the apostles. Conyers Middle- 
ton published a very interesting book, entitled A Let- 
ter from Rome, in which h e endeavored to show that 
there was an exact conformity between popery and 
paganism, and that the religion of the present Ro- 
mans was derived from that of their heathen ancestors. 
James Russell Lowell gives the gist of Middleton's ar- 
gument in an audacious pun when he says that " the 
statue of Jupiter is now made to pass for that of Jew 
Peter by good Roman brass." 

Christianity not only occupied the Pagan temples 
and renamed Pagan statues, it also adopted the dates 
of the Pagan nature festivals for Christmas and Eas- 
ter, and it borrowed from Paganism many details of 
ceremony and worship, such as the forms of its clerical 
vestments and the use of incense and holy water. 

All this was natural and much of it was not only 
innocent but wise. The chain of religious, like the 
chain of natural, evolution is unbroken, and true piety 
requires that we should respect all the efforts of man 
to worship God and should gladly adopt from any 
religion any element of truth, beauty, or love it may 
possess. We live in an age when religions are studied 
comparatively, and it is no ground of condemnation 
of any doctrine or ceremony to discover that it is not 
exclusively Jewish or Christian, but has a deeper and 
broader root in our common human nature. 

The deepest and saddest change which Christianity 
has undergone in the course of the ages, is not in the 
adoption of some of the external features of primitive 
religions, but in the corruption of the church by world- 
liness and ambition. 



186 



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History repeats itself, and in the course of a thou- 
sand years the Christian church, strangely unmindful 
of its own early saints and martyrs, became as cruel and 
bitter a persecutor as Paganism had ever been, and 
to be a heretic became as dangerous as it had once 
been to be a Christian. The period from the year 
five hundred to the Reformation is sometimes called 
the dark ages. There were few schools for the laity 
and the vast majority of men and women were unable 
to read and write, and even the great majority of the 
priests and monks were grossly ignorant. The services 
of the church were conducted in Latin. The only 
copies of the Bible were in manuscript and in ancient 
languages, so that the general ignorance gave great 
opportunity alike for the growth of popular supersti- 
tion and of ecclesiastical pretension. Under those 
circumstances many gross errors in doctrine and many 
grievous abuses in administration crept into the church, 
and it again became necessary for earnest men to 
assert the right of the individual conscience against 
ecclesiastical authority. 

The first reformer whose principles and career it is 
easy to trace is John Wycliffe. The love of money 
is the root of all evil and in Wy cliff e's day the love 
of money had corrupted the church. The church had 
become the owner of nearly one-third of the land and 
received a revenue more than twice as large as that 
of the King, and all this vast wealth the church ex- 
empted as much as possible from taxation by the 
secular authorities. Wycliffe championed the cause of 
the poor. He said that God gave his sheep to be pas- 
tured, not to be shaven and shorn. He said, " Christ 
during his life upon earth was of all men the poorest, 
casting from him all worldly authority, and I deduce 



PERSECUTION 



187 



from these premises that the Pope should surrender 
all temporal authority to the civil power and advise 
his clergy to do the same." These words of Wycliffe 
are quoted from a letter by the bold reformer to the 
Pope, and in a defense of himself to Parliament 
Wycliffe declared that the church might justly be 
deprived by the King of its property for defect of 
duty. 

Wycliffe not only attacked the greed and worldliness 
of the church, but he also attempted to reform its 
doctrines. In particular he denied the doctrine of 
transubstantiation, that dogma of the real presence 
of Christ in the eucharist, which was the very center 
of mediaeval theology. The words in the fourth gos- 
pel, " Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of 
the Son of Man ye have no life in you," were taken 
literally, and the mass was looked upon as an atoning 
sacrifice by which alone man could obtain salvation. 
Wycliffe boldly denied the truth of the church's in- 
terpretation and thus became the father of modern 
Protestantism. Wycliffe was driven from his profes- 
sorship in the university and was summoned to Rome 
to answer the charge of heresy; but before he could 
do so he was called by death to appear before the 
higher tribunal of God. The great reformer died on 
the last day of 1384. After his death his writings 
were condemned and his bones were dug up and burned 
and the ashes cast into the river. In England a 
statute was passed by which all preachers of heresy 
and all writers and owners of heretical books, if they 
refused to abjure their opinions, were to be burned in 
a high place before the people. Similar laws were 
made in other countries, and for more than two hun- 
dred years a policy of persecution prevailed. 



188 



PERSECUTION 



The tender beatitudes and loving parables of Jesus 
were ignored and forgotten. The loving and per- 
suasive spirit of Christ and his early followers was 
changed into a spirit of hatred and oppression, and as 
Tennyson puts it: 

" From the golden alms of blessing man had coined him- 
self a curse; 

Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter, which was cruder, 
which was worse." 

> 

It is difficult for us in this tolerant age to under- 
stand the abhorrence in which the first Protestants 
were held. They were looked upon as criminals of 
the worst type, and were executed in a way to impress 
their guilt as strongly as possible upon the spectators. 
Thus at the execution of William Sawtree, a priest 
convicted of the Wycliffe heresy in 1401, we read 
that he was brought to the stake in his clerical robes 
and with the symbols of his priestly office in his hands. 
His heresy was declared and his sentence read, and then 
he was solemnly degraded from the position of priest 
to that of layman. First the paten and chalice and 
chasuble, the emblems of priestly rank because used 
by a priest in celebrating mass, were one by one taken 
from him, and he was thus reduced to the rank of 
deacon. Then the emblems of a deacon, the lection- 
ary, the alb, stole, taper and keys, were taken away 
and the man was left without a vestige of clerical 
character. He was not yet, however, ready for the 
flames. It was necessary that the people should be 
warned of the terrible nature of the sin of heresy and 
so a sermon was preached, often from the words of 
Paul : " Though I give my body to be burned and have 
not charity it profiteth me nothing." Then fol- 



PERSECUTION 



189 



lowed the torturing flames. At any stage in these 
proceedings, even when the tongues of fire had begun 
to devour the quivering flesh, the accused might save 
his life by a recantation, and what a testimony it is 
to the faith of the martyrs and to the nobility of the 
human soul that so many hundreds passed with un- 
shaken courage through an ordeal so terrifying to the 
spirit and so agonizing to the body. 

Ann Askewe, a girl of noble birth, when only seven- 
teen years old was imprisoned for denying transub- 
stantiation, and was burnt at Smithfield in 1546. 
When in prison, and after her delicate and beautiful 
body had been several times cruelly tortured upon 
the rack, she wrote a touching poem, one stanza of 
which runs thus : 

" I am not she that list 
My anchor to let fall 
For every drizzling mist, 
My ship's substantial." 

Her poem ends with the Christlike prayer: 

" Yet Lord I do desire 

For what they do to me 
Let them not taste the hire 
Of their iniquity." 

It is a beautiful petition and properly reminds us 
that very- many of the agents in these dreadful perse- 
cutions were personally humane men and regretted 
deeply the sufferings they were compelled by law to 
inflict. Nevertheless these laws against heretics were 
supposed to be necessary for the maintenance of re- 
ligion and for the welfare of society, and they remained 
in force down to a very recent date. 



190 



PERSECUTION 



Only nine years before the Mayflower sailed, Bar- 
tholomew Leggatt and Edward Wightman were burned 
for denying the doctrine of the Trinity. And alas ! 
the intolerant spirit even crossed the sea, and the 
Puritans who had themselves fled from persecution be- 
came persecutors in their turn. They had not yet 
grasped the idea of perfect liberty for the individual 
conscience. They believed that they had established a 
pure religion whose statements of doctrine and modes 
of worship might be proved from the Scriptures, and 
they wished all dwellers in the Puritan colonies to 
conform to the Puritan church. In Nathaniel Ward's 
phrase, " Polypiety was the greatest impiety.'* So 
they prohibited Catholic and Episcopal services, they 
banished the Baptist, and, exasperated beyond measure 
by the vehemence and persistence of the new sect of 
Quakers, who declaimed against steeple houses and 
hireling priests and the sacraments, they hanged four 
of these troublers on Boston Common. 

In the civilized world the days of extreme and cruel 
persecution are almost ended, the days of apology, 
repentance and atonement have begun. When more 
than fifty years after Milton's death a monument was 
erected in Westminster Abbey to his memory, Samuel 
Johnson wrote in regard to it: 

" See nations slowly wise and meanly just 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust." 

A statue of Wycliffe now stands in Oxford and one 
of Luther at Wittenberg. A monument now marks 
the spot where Giordano Bruno was burned as a heretic 
at Rome in 1600. 

Forty years ago, Renan, the famous author of the 
Life of Jesus, was expelled by the government from 



PERSECUTION 



191 



his professorship of Hebrew in the College of France. 
Lately the prime minister of France and a great com- 
pany of high officers of state solemnly dedicated a 
statue of him in the city of his birth. 

Even more significant perhaps as a sign of the times 
is the fact that on the three hundred and fiftieth an- 
niversary of the burning of Servetus a monument was 
erected to his memory on the spot where the martyr 
expired. Servetus was arrested and imprisoned at the 
instigation of Calvin, and convicted on evidence fur- 
nished by Calvin, and in spite of all palliating circum- 
stances the death of Servetus has in the general judg- 
ment of men remained as a dark blot on the memory 
of the great reformer. Many who adhere to Calvin's 
theology feel this and the peculiarity of the monu- 
ment to Servetus is that it is erected by followers of 
Calvin as an expiation and bears an apologetic in- 
scription of which the following words are a part: 

" Reverent and grateful sons of Calvin, our great 
reformer, but condemning an error which was that 
of his age, and steadfastly adhering to liberty of con- 
science, according to the true principles of the ref orraa- 
tion and of the gospel, we have erected this expiatory 
monument, on the 27th of October, 1903." The erec- 
tion of this atoning monument was approved by the 
Association of Ministers of the city of Geneva, and in 
France by the Fraternal Committee of the Reformed 
Churches, the most representative Protestant bodies of 
the country in which Calvin was born and of that in 
which he died. 

Aristotle tells us that tragedy is seen in its most 
perfect type when a good man suffers greatly because 
of his goodness, and that such a tragedy purifies the 
heart by pity and terror. But the records of Chris- 



192 



PERSECUTION 



tian heroism do more than fill us with pity and terror, 
they inspire us with hope. These things were written 
for us, that we through patience and comfort of the 
Scriptures might have hope. These great victories 
in the past encourage us to bear patiently the smaller 
trials, the aloofness, the misunderstanding, the reproach 
that even yet are the lot of minorities, of reformers 
and pioneers. As long as the present order of society 
lasts, as long as there are ignorant and wicked people 
in the world, the wise and the good must both work 
and suffer. But it is a work and suffering in which a 
really great soul will find its highest joy. Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning in that wonderful poem, A Vision 
of Poets, addressing the heroic bards, says: 

" If all the crowns of earth must wound 
With prickings of the thorns he found, 
If saddest sighs give sweetest sound, 
What say ye unto this? Refuse 
This baptism in salt water, choose 
Calm breasts, mute lips, and labor lose? 
Or oh ! ye gifted givers, ye 
Who give your liberal hearts to me 
To make the world this harmony, 
Are ye content your lives be spent 
To such world help? The spirits bent 
Their awful brows and said, Content." 

Jesus blessed those who were persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake, and it seems to me that part of the 
blessedness of the martyrs is that to all eternity it 
will make them glad to remember that in their hour 
of fiery trial they did not apostatize. It is said of 
Jesus himself that for the joy that was set before 
him he endured the cross, despising the shame. The 
pang of martyrdom is very short, for God in his mercy 



PERSECUTION 



193 



has ordained that from pain too extreme to be borne 
the sufferer is soon released by unconsciousness. But 
the pains of memory are far more lasting, and when 
the persecutor awakens, as he surely will, to the nature 
of his act, even though God may pardon and though 
all men and even his victims may forgive, yet the 
dreadful past can never be undone and the memory of 
it can never be effaced. 

The reward and the punishments of memory begin 
now. The kingdom of heaven is within us and the 
joys of the future have their foretastes and foreshad- 
owings here, or, as the good old hymn of Dr. Watts 
expresses it: 

" The men of grace have found 
Glory begins below; 
Celestial fruit on earthly ground 
From faith and hope may grow." 

Those who endure persecution for righteousness' 
sake have some rewards even here. First among these 
is an approving conscience which is the highest of all 
earthly blessings. Paul and Silas, with their backs 
bleeding from the lash, with their feet fast in the 
stocks, in the midnight darkness of the inner prison, 
sang praises unto God. There is a joy which is inde- 
pendent of place or circumstances, a joy which the 
world cannot give, which cannot be taken away. It 
is the joy which God gives to his faithful and beloved 
children in their hour of extremest need. It is the 
joy which Jesus himself had and only those who have 
had some fellowship with his sufferings can enter into 
his joy and glory. Christ said " He that taketh not up 
his cross and followeth after me cannot be my disciple." 
Those who will not bear the cross cannot wear the 
11—13 



194* 



PERSECUTION 



crown. This symbolic language does not represent 
an arbitrary decree but a plain fact. There are many 
things chat cannot be given but must be obtained, if 
at all, by personal effort. There is no royal road to 
health or learning or virtue. Parents and teachers 
and friends may give us counsel and help, but if we 
want to be healthy, we must obey the laws of health, 
if we are to be wise, we must exert our own powers of 
observation and memory, if we are to be virtuous, it 
must be by personal resistance to evil and personal 
choice of good. In the nature of the case the rewards 
of effort cannot be given to those who have made no 
effort or the rewards of heroism to those who are not 
heroic. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap. Where there is little effort there is little result 
and reward, where there is great effort there is cor- 
responding return. 

As holiness is the highest attribute of God, so con- 
science is the crown and glory of man, and those who 
by repeated victories over temptation and sin and by 
patient continuance in duty have developed their moral 
faculties, in so doing have become in a peculiar man- 
ner partakers of the divine nature and sharers in the 
divine joy. When a man is steadfast in any great 
temptation it shows that his virtue has grown strong 
by enduring many previous tests, and so when a man 
is found with such faith in God that he will gladly 
lay down his life rather than disobey what he believes 
to be a divine command, it shows that that man has 
walked with God very closely, that he has communed 
with him in prayer, that he knows him not only as 
Creator and Ruler and Judge but as Friend and heav- 
enly Father. It is not because of their bodily suffer- 
ings that the martyrs are blessed, but because of the 



PERSECUTION 



195 



purity of soul, the clearness of spiritual vision and 
the strength of faith that enabled them to endure their 
fiery trials. 

To their bravest and most faithful soldiers, earthly 
monarchs give special marks of favor, such as the 
cross of the Legion of Honor, or the Victorian 
Cross. The book of Revelation which was written with 
the special object of strengthening Christians to en- 
dure persecution, promises many honors to those who 
overcome. They were to eat of the tree of life and 
of the hidden manna, they were to have new names 
and to be clothed in white robes and to receive palms 
and crowns, to be pillars in the temple of God and to 
inherit all things. They are to sit upon thrones, they 
are to shine as stars. These figures of speech only 
imperfectly symbolize the rewards and distinctions 
which God will confer upon his most faithful servants 
and most heroic warriors; for they are too earthly and 
gross and material fully to express the things that 
eye hath not seen nor ear heard, which it hath not 
entered into the heart of man to conceive. After read- 
ing them the mind returns with satisfaction to the 
simpler and more spiritual benediction of Jesus, 
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and perse- 
cute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely 
for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great 
is your reward in heaven." 



CREATION 



The book of Genesis professes to give an account 
of the creation of the world and of all things in it. 
In the authorized version of the English Bible, Genesis 
is said to be the first book of Moses and in giving to 
it this title the English translators follow the tradition 
of the Jewish church. Yet the supposition that Moses 
wrote the book of Genesis requires to be modified in 
two particulars. In the first place Moses borrowed 
materials from his predecessors and in the second his 
writings have been again and again expanded and 
altered by later editors. Assyrian inscriptions which 
have been deciphered and given to the world by Layard 
and Sayce and of which Dr. Delitzsch has recently 
given an account in his popular book Babel and Bible, 
show that the same general view of creation as that 
given in Genesis had centuries before Moses been held 
by the Chaldeans and Babylonians. As parts of the 
Pentateuch are centuries earlier than Moses, so other 
parts are centuries later. The Pentateuch was rewrit- 
ten in the time of Ezra the scribe after the return 
from the Babylonian captivity. At that time new 
provisions were added to the law and the old ones 
were more strictly enforced. Among other things an 
especial effort was made to secure the universal ob- 
servance of the Sabbath, and in order to give this duty 
the highest possible sanction it was declared that God 
himself had made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
that in them is, in six days and had rested upon the 
seventh day and hallowed it. 

The work of creation and God's rest after it are 
196 



CREATION 



197 



among the most popular subjects of mediaeval art. In 
every country of Europe from Italy to Sweden, sculp- 
tures, pictures, stained windows, and mosaics repre- 
sent the Creator in human form fashioning with his 
hands the sun and moon and hanging them in their 
place in the sky, or moulding Adam from clay or 
shaping Eve from a rib taken from the sleeping man. 
In many of these representations the furrows upon the 
Creator's brow show how deeply he has thought upon 
the plan of his work and the swollen and rigid muscles 
of his arms how strenuous has been his physical exer- 
tion. In other pictures, he is represented as resting 
after his labors in an attitude of extreme fatigue, but 
with an expression of satisfaction at the completion of 
his work. In the conception of the painters and sculp- 
tors of such works, the firmament was literally God's 
handiwork and the heavens " the work of his fingers." 

But the New Testament introduces a complication 
into the story of Creation. In accordance with a con- 
ception of the person of Christ which grew up toward 
the close of the first century, some of the books of the 
Bible assert that the Father did not in person create 
the world but empowered and commissioned the Son to 
do so. Thus the epistle to the Hebrews says : " God 
who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in 
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in 
these last days spoken unto us by his Son whom he 
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he 
made the worlds." Similarly in the Fourth Gospel it 
is said, " In the beginning was the Word and the Word 
was with God and the Word was God — All things 
were made by him and without him was not anything 
made." In accordance with these passages, Milton in 
Paradise Lost represents the Father as saying to the 
Son, 



198 



CREATION 



" I in a moment will create another world; 
This I perf orm, speak thou and be it done. 

* * # 

So spake the Almighty and to what he spake 
His Word, the filial godhead, gave effect. 

* * * 

Heaven opened wide 
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound 
On golden hinges moving, to let forth 
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word 
And spirit coming to create new worlds. 

* * * 

He on the wings of cherubim 
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode 
Far into chaos and the world unborn. 

* * * 

Then stayed the fervid wheels and in his hand 
He took the golden compasses, prepared 
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
This universe and all created things. 
One foot he centered and the other turned 
Round through the vast profundity obscure, 
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, 
This be thy just circumference, O World." 

Passing over Milton's account of the continuance 
of the work of creation during the next five days, I will 
read an extract from his amplification of the Biblical 
account of the sixth and last day, when God said: 

" Let the earth bring forth cattle and creeping things 
Each in their kind. The earth obeyed and straight, 
Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth 
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms 
Limbed and full-grown, . 
Among the trees in pairs they rose, 

* * * 



CREATION 



199 



The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared 
The tawny lion, pawing to get free 
His hinder parts 

The swift stag from under ground 
Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould 
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved 
His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose, 
As plants." 

In all this the poetry of Milton was in accord with 
the letter of Scripture and with the creed of the church 
both Catholic and Protestant. St. Thomas Aquinas, 
greatest of mediaeval theologians, expressly taught 
that God created the substance of things in a moment 
by his word and then spent six days in the work of 
separating, shaping and adorning this creation. And 
the great Westminster assembly which in Milton's day 
formulated the Calvinistic creed still, with slight modi- 
fication, held by all Presbyterian churches, specially 
required Christians to believe that all things visible 
and invisible were created out of nothing and in ex- 
actly six days. 

Yet even from very early times there were some 
who doubted the literal truth of the account that the 
sun and moon, the earth and all its inhabitants were 
made in six days. The narrative of the creation is 
followed by two other narratives which must be con- 
sidered in connection with it. We are told that God 
brought every beast of the field and every fowl of the 
air to Adam to see what he would call them; and 
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was 
the name thereof. Again, it is recorded that God told 
Noah to build an ark and take all beasts clean and 
unclean into it; for, said God, "I will destroy every 
living substance that I have made from olf the face of 



200 



CREATION 



the earth ; " and it is said that " every beast after his 
kind and all the cattle after their kind, and every, 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his 
kind, and every bird of every sort went two and two, 
male and female, into the ark, as God commanded 
Noah." All things are of course possible to omnipo- 
tence and there is no greater difficulty in conceiving 
that God made everything in six days than in conceiv- 
ing how he causes the sun to shine and the stars to 
keep their orbits and causes plants and animals to 
grow. But as regards Adam and Noah the case was 
different. Their powers were obviously limited. As 
long as only the few animals found in any one locality 
were known, it was not impossible to conceive of Adam 
giving names to them all or of Noah gathering them 
all into an ark ; but when four hundred years ago the 
great epoch of geographical discovery began, with 
each extension of knowledge in regard to the number 
and variety of the species of animals, it became more 
and more difficult to accept the Biblical account of the 
creation as literally true. When America and Aus- 
tralia were found to be full of birds and beasts and 
fishes unlike those of Europe and Asia and Africa 
and when the researches of naturalists showed that 
there were thousands and tens of thousands of species 
of animals, it became incredible that all these species 
had ever been contained in the ark and had all spread 
from one spot to the different parts of the earth. 
For instance the kangaroo is found in Australia, but 
not in Asia; and the questions naturally arose, why, 
if it originated in Asia, it had ceased to exist there 
and how it had succeeded in crossing the sea to Aus- 
tralia. How did the animals get to America and to 
all the remote islands of the sea? Even as early as 



CREATION 



201 



the fifth century some of these difficulties had been 
perceived, and St. Augustine in his City of God de- 
clares that some animals can swim great distances and 
that men might have taken not only domestic animals 
of recognized value but also wild ones in order to 
have the pleasure of hunting them. These sugges- 
tions, however, seemed to Augustine insufficient to ex- 
plain the distribution of animals even over the limited 
area known to him, and in despair of any natural 
solution of the problem he adds the words, " More- 
over, it cannot be denied that the transfer may have 
been accomplished through the agency of angels, com- 
manded or allowed to perform this labor by God." 
Can absurdity go farther than this? Fancy an angel 
flying across the sea to Australia carrying a kangaroo 
or flying northward and carrying a polar bear to an 
island in the Arctic sea. Such a solution of the prob- 
lem is only possible to one in whom a purely theological 
spirit has destroyed alike the power of reasoning and 
the faculty of observation. 

Since the Reformation broke the power of the 
church, since the revival of learning widened men's 
knowledge, the tendency to discard supernatural revela- 
tion and to decide all questions by observation and 
reason has been strong; and in our day almost all 
men of science and of liberal education, including 
very many of the clergy, look upon the account of 
the creation in Genesis not as a divinely-given and 
infallible revelation of the truth, but as the best ex- 
position of the facts of Nature which could be given 
by a man of genius who had only the limited knowl- 
edge prevailing in primitive times. 

There is a strong disposition among conservative 
clergymen to try to make it appear that the account 



202 



CREATION 



in Genesis is not inaccurate but only incomplete. They 
would have us believe that all the discoveries of modern 
science merely fill in the details of the broad outlines 
laid down in Genesis. Scientific men generally assert 
the contrary, and it seems to me that a layman of ordi- 
nary knowledge and intelligence ought to be able to 
make up his mind whether the account in Genesis does 
or does not accord with modern knowledge. That 
account asserts that light was made on the first day, 
the sky on the second, the sea and the land covered 
with grass and trees on the third, the sun, moon and 
stars on the fourth. According to Genesis the earth 
is first made and then the sun is placed in the sky 
to give light and to mark the alternation of day and 
night, just as a man nowadays builds the frame- 
work of his house and then puts in his gas jets and 
electric lights and places the clock upon the mantel. 
According to the natural interpretation of the lan- 
guage of Genesis, the writer thinks of the earth as the 
great and central body of the universe and of the 
sun, moon and stars as small and secondary objects. 
But authorities assert that " The bulk of the sun 
exceeds that of the earth 1,200,000 times." In its 
annual revolution round the sun, the earth traverses 
an orbit of 596 million miles, or, in other words, with- 
out a pause or a tremor it flies through space night 
and day, summer and winter, at the inconceivable 
speed of 19 miles every second. 

Modern science has offered to explain the depend- 
ence of the earth upon the sun by the nebular hypothe- 
sis, according to which a vast expanse of fire-mist grad- 
ually consolidated into a globe, which revolving upon 
its axis threw off the various planets, our earth among 
them, in succession. The earth thus thrown off from 



CREATION 



203 



the blazing rim of the sun took, if we may accept the 
calculations of Lord Kelvin, the greatest of English 
physicists, at least 20,000,000 years to cool, before it 
would sustain even vegetable life, and the geologists 
assert that " in the stratified rocks we have abundant 
proof that the whole fauna and flora of the earth's 
surface have passed through many revolutions, species 
and genera have appeared and vanished many times in 
succession. It must be admitted that these vicissitudes 
in the organic world can have been effected only dur- 
ing vast periods of time. The argument from geo- 
logical evidence, favors an interval of probably one 
hundred million of years since the advent upon the 
earth of the earliest form of life." 

Genesis tells us that the heavens and the earth and 
all the forms of life upon the earth were made in six 
days. The astronomers and geologists and botanists 
and zoologists tell us that the earth itself and all the 
forms of life upon it are the result of slow and grad- 
ual modifications through almost infinite periods of 
time. 

This theory of the gradual evolution of life had 
been faintly conceived by the ancient Greek philoso- 
phers, but it is only in recent times that knowledge of 
the earth and of the vegetable and animal life upon 
it has become sufficiently full and exact to change 
evolution from a philosophic conjecture to an estab- 
lished science. The great French naturalist, Lamarck, 
in 1809 published his zoological Philosophy in which 
he declared that the forms of animals were greatly 
changed by the conditions of their lives. He showed 
that: 

1. In favoring circumstances they tended to grow 
larger and larger until they reached the size most 
advantageous to them. 



204 



CREATION 



2. The body was so plastic that it could develop a 
new organ to supply a new want. 

3. All organs develop according to their use. 

4. The newly developed organs of animals may be 
transmitted to their offspring. 

These principles, with time, Lamarck deemed suffi- 
cient for the advance from the monad to the mam- 
mal, from the lowest to the highest form of animal 
life. 

Fifty years after the publication of Lamarck's great 
book appeared the still greater one of Charles Dar- 
win, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Se- 
lection. It had long been recognized by naturalists 
that there are many varieties of the same species, and 
indeed even the most careless and unscientific observer 
perceives the very great variety in animals and vege- 
tables of the same general class. What varieties of 
dogs and pigeons, of apples and peaches, of roses 
and tulips there are ! It had been recognized that new 
and wonderful varieties were constantly appearing; 
but orthodox natural history affirmed that species were 
created by God in the beginning and had remained 
immutable. De Candolle, a very eminent Swiss bot- 
anist of the last century, says : " We unite under the 
designation of a species all those individuals that mu- 
tually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to 
allow of our supposing that they may have proceeded 
originally from a single being or a single pair." But 
Darwin as the result of his long and world-wide ob- 
servations came to the conclusions that the species 
like varieties had been originated by the principle of 
natural selection. He shows that more seeds are pro- 
duced than can find room to grow and that more ani- 
mals are born than the earth can sustain, and that 



CREATION 



205 



there is consequently a constant and strenuous strug- 
gle for existence. He shows that every kind of plant 
or animal must maintain itself not only against those 
other creatures which seek to make it their food, but 
still more in competition with those which seek the same 
nutriment with itself. In this struggle the stronger, 
or those which possess anything peculiarly favorable 
in their organization, must overcome the weaker, and 
these must therefore cease to exist. Thus a slight 
variation may be perpetuated; and the possessors of 
any advantage in the means of procuring food, or in 
the powers of offense or defense, may entirely displace 
their less favored congenitors. The modifications thus 
taking place Darwin regards as accounting for the 
changes in organized beings from one geologic period 
to another and for the great differences in the plants 
and animals of the different parts of the earth. 

We all see how exercise modifies the human frame. 
There is a marked difference between the average 
physique of bricklayers and of tailors. Look at the 
vigor of the sturdy linemen who expand their lungs 
as they climb the telegraph poles and exercise every 
muscle of the body as they nail on the supports and 
stretch the wires, and contrast the athletic frames of 
these men with the muscular feebleness of the indoor 
telegraph operator who does nothing but tap the key 
and use the pen. The effect of the constant and 
energetic, use of one set of muscles may produce a 
one-sided development. The gripman's right arm has 
long been a marked example and now the physicians 
are saying that constant use of the telephone is mak- 
ing the left ear more acute than the right or pro- 
ducing what is briefly called the telephone ear, which 
can distinguish sounds which to the less used right 
ear would be only a confused buzz. 



£06 



CREATION 



The giraffe feeds on the leaves of trees and Lamarck 
had accounted for his long legs and long neck by 
supposing that they had grown by continual exercise 
in reaching upward. Darwin adds to this supposition 
his principle of natural selection according to which in 
a time of scarcity the tall giraffes would survive and 
perpetuate the species while the shorter ones would 
be unable to secure enough food to sustain life and 
would perish. 

The seal is an even more remarkable illustration of 
this principle. In its main characteristics it is a land 
animal, for it is a mammal and brings forth its young 
upon the shore. It has lungs and cannot breathe 
under water, yet it now spends most of its time in 
the water to which its structure is admirable adapted. 
Its body is smooth and tapering, its legs are short and 
the hind feet are webbed, the respiration is slow, so 
that the animal when in pursuit of the fish upon which 
it lives can stay under water for many minutes at a 
time; its nose and ears can be closed completely at 
will, and its eye has a peculiar formation which enables 
it to see alike above and below the surface of the water. 
Seals live in or near the arctic and the antarctic re- 
gions, and the theory of evolution is that they are de- 
scended from land animals which were gradually driven 
by the scarcity of food on the land to seek their nour- 
ishment in the sea which offered it in abundance, and 
that their organs were modified by constant use in 
their new conditions until they reached their present 
perfect adaptation to an amphibious life. 

Darwin traces the eye from its simplest to its most 
perfect form and shows how gradual are the transi- 
tions from 

" The mole's dim curtain to the lynx's beam." 



CREATION 



201 



He further asserts that " nerves sensitive to touch 
may be rendered sensitive to light and likewise to 
those coarser vibrations which produce sound." 

In short Darwinian evolution teaches that all the 
existing forms of vegetable and animal life may have 
been developed, by causes still in operation, from a 
single germ of life of the simplest kind. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson accepted the principle of evolution and gave 
us his conception of the unity which underlies all forms 
of life, even those apparently the most diverse, by 
saying in his startling epigrammatic way, " A horse 
is a running man, a bird is a flying man, a fish is a 
swimming man, and a tree is a rooted man." 

From the standpoint of religion what shall we say 
to all this? In the first place, I think it should be 
said that, if it is true, it is impossible for religious 
teachers to oppose it successfully by persecuting and 
silencing its ministerial advocates. To use Horace 
Bushnell's strong figure, " No one can stop the dawn- 
ing of the day by wringing the neck of the crowing 
cock." Nor is there any necessity for the church to 
tremble for the essentials of religion. When it is 
frankly admitted that the earth was made after the 
sun and not before it, and that all the existing species 
of plants and animals were not created by the imme- 
diate acts of God in six days, but have been gradually 
evolved by the principles of natural selection during 
long ages, and that the writer of the book of Genesis 
gave a primitive and inaccurate view of creation, will 
religion gain or lose by the new point of view? It 
is very clear that certain articles in the earlier creeds 
of the church will be doomed. The doctrine of Adam's 
fall must disappear and with it all the theories about 
Jesus being the second Adam. But religion will grow 



208 



CREATION 



stronger and more spiritual by the change. St. Paul 
tells us that knowledge shall vanish away but that 
faith, hope, and love will abide. " Faith can train its 
vines on the new trellis as well as on the old." 

It will take time to familiarize the church with this 
stupendous conception of gradual evolution ; but to my 
mind it is in every way a higher and nobler conception. 
In the first place it gives a nobler conception of the 
power and wisdom of God. A God who labors and 
rests is only a magnified man, quite unlike the Infinite 
and Eternal Spirit of which we read in the later books 
of the Bible. How much nobler than the conception 
of God in the primitive legend in Genesis is that of 
the second Isaiah who writes : " Hast thou not known ? 
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the 
Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither 
is weary? There is no searching of his understand- 
ing." 

The doctrine of evolution not only lengthens the 
time and enlarges the scale of creation, and in so doing 
magnifies our conception of the Creator, but it also 
gives us a more hopeful and inspiring view of man's 
origin and destiny. When men thought of our race 
as beginning in a perfect pair of human beings no 
wonder that they considered that the race was in a 
deplorable state of degeneracy. What a change from 
original perfection of body and mind and soul to all 
the diseases and ignorance and sin that exist in the 
world to-day ! If the race began at the top it has, 
indeed, sadly fallen. But if we think of it as begin- 
ning at the bottom, what marvelous progress, what 
ground for future hope! In the light of the theory 
of evolution it seems to me that all the great spiritual 
aspirations of the Bible receive new significance and 



CREATION 



209 



depth. If we see that we have descended not only 
from the lowest type of beast, but that from shapeless 
protoplasm, destitute alike of thought and feeling, 
man has been gradually evolved, man of whom Shake- 
speare could say, " What a noble piece of work is man ! 
how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form 
and moving how express and admirable! in action how 
like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! ", that 
we have developed from the unconscious nomad to men 
and women possessed of reason and memory and con- 
science, shall we not say with new wonder and grati- 
tude, " Beloved, now are we the children of God, but 
it does not yet appear what we shall be." 

Evolution tells us that all the organs of the body 
and all the faculties of the mind have been developed 
by effort. What is that but another way of saying, 
" Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock 
and it shall be opened unto you." The formula of 
evolution is " The fittest survive ! " and is not that in 
another form the beatitude of Jesus, " Blessed are the 
meek ; for they shall inherit the earth." 

Science and religion go hand in hand. Every ad- 
vance in knowledge is also an advance in religion. 
Knowledge is the foundation of faith, and the broader 
and firmer that foundation, the higher and nobler the 
superstructure that can be built upon it. We know 
in part and we understand in part; but when that 
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part 
shall be done away. Of one thing let us be sure, 
progress will continue. 

" Through the ages one increasing purpose runs 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the proc- 
ess of the suns." 
11—14 



210 



CREATION 



Let us not be afraid to look all the facts of life in 
the face. Many of them are strange and even ter- 
rible, for God's thoughts are not as our thoughts nor 
his ways as our ways, for as high as the heavens are 
above the earth so high are his thoughts above our 
thoughts and his ways above our ways ; and he is lift- 
ing us up to his higher thoughts and higher ways, and 
is doing for us exceeding abundantly above all that 
we can ask or think. 



THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



On one occasion when a Roman captain was about 
to scourge the Apostle Paul, he delivered himself from 
the suffering and the indignity by an appeal for his 
rights as a Roman citizen. The captain having satis- 
fied himself that Paul spoke the truth treated him with 
respect, for he himself with a great sum had obtained 
that freedom. 

The religious liberty which we enjoy is the result 
of generations of suffering and struggle in which 
many thousands of persons have endured loss of prop- 
erty, imprisonment, exile and death in order to win 
freedom of conscience for themselves and for their pos- 
terity. Religious liberty has been bought with such 
a great price that it surely must be a very precious 
thing. The Constitution of the United States was 
made by learned, wise and patriotic statesmen and was 
meant by its framers to insure good government and 
to guard effectually against all abuses; but the peo- 
ple were not satisfied with the work of their repre- 
sentatives, and they immediately added a bill of popu- 
lar rights in which the first words are : " Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 

The people of the United States are justly proud 
of their religious liberty, and most of them I think 
look upon that liberty as the chief cause of the high 
educational standards and intelligence of the people, 
as the safeguard of our political freedom, and as the 
very basis of our national prosperity and greatness. 
We are sometimes accused of materialism and said to 

211 



212 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



be given over to the worship of dollars, yet it is per- 
fectly obvious that the people of this country value 
their religious liberty far more than their secular and 
economic freedom. We submit to a great many re- 
strictions upon foreign trade and without much pro- 
test allow a comparatively few men to control many 
of the necessaries of physical life; but I am greatly 
mistaken if the people of this country would allow any- 
thing like such restraints upon their religious beliefs 
and forms of worship as they tolerate in regard to 
their business affairs and means of domestic comfort. 
Men recognize in some degree at least the truth of 
the words of Jesus, " A man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things that he possesseth but in his 
own soul." 

The Psalmist says, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
forget not all his benefits." It is well to remind our- 
selves of the origin and the nature and the obligations 
of religious liberty. There are three principal views 
current among us in regard to religious beliefs and 
modes of worship, the Catholic, the evangelical Prot- 
estant, and the liberal or progressive. The Catholic 
view has the merit of clearness and consistency. The 
Catholic doctrine is that the Bible is an infallible 
revelation, and that the church is the authorized and 
infallible interpreter of that revelation. Its argument 
is that in the very nature of the case a written law 
requires an official expounder and a judge whose de- 
cision shall be final and binding, and for this that 
church appeals to the analogy of the civil statutes and 
judiciaries. American Catholic priests point us to the 
Constitution of the United States, and tell us very 
justly that it would be a worthless instrument if there 
were not a Supreme Court which had the power and 



FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 213 



the duty to interpret the scope and meaning of every 
clause. The Constitution was drawn up by very able 
lawyers and its language is as plain and definite as 
language can be made; yet from the very beginning 
learned and intelligent men have differed as to the 
meaning of some of its provisions, and the fundamental 
difference between the great political parties in this 
country may be said to be that one party construes 
the Constitution strictly and reserves as much liberty 
as possible to states and individuals, and the other 
party construes the Constitution freely and does its ut- 
most to strengthen the federal authority and weld the 
nation closely together. But now, if in regard to a 
short and clear modern document like the Constitution 
there are such differences of opinion that the Supreme 
Court is kept busy all the time in deciding cases that 
arise under it, how much more may men be expected to 
differ in regard to the interpretation of a large book like 
the Bible, written by many men of many different ages 
and countries, and written moreover in highly figurative 
and often exceedingly obscure and mysterious lan- 
guage. As a matter of fact we see that whenever men 
are at liberty to interpret the Bible for themselves, 
their interpretations differ very widely. Portions of 
the Bible were written by priests and emphasize ritual 
and ceremony ; men of the priestly type of mind fasten 
their attention upon these and say : " This is essential, 
here your duty is pointed out." Parts of the Bible 
were written by prophets who tell us that sacrifices and 
baptisms and all external rites are utterly insufficient 
and worthless in themselves, that if emphasized too 
much they become a peril and a snare to men, and 
that God requires only purity of heart and of life and 
justice and kindness in all our dealings with others. 



214 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



Roman Catholic theologians point to the hundreds of 
Protestant sects, saying that the private interpre- 
tation of the Bible has brought about all this division 
and subdivision, and that these infinite variations are 
a painful scandal to Christendom and a hindrance to 
missionary effort among the heathen. The Roman 
Catholic makes his appeal not only to reason and his- 
tory but to the Scriptures. He says that Peter was 
the first to accept the Messiahship of Jesus and that 
in consequence of his confession Jesus made him the 
chief apostle and gave unto him the keys of the King- 
dom of heaven and said to him, " Whatsoever thou 
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven" (Matt. 16:19), and that this authority was 
solemnly renewed and ratified after the resurrection 
when Jesus pardoned his apostasy and denial, and 
thrice solemnly charged him, Feed my sheep. Catho- 
lic theologians tell us that the authority conferred 
upon Peter was not personal but official and descended 
to his successors, just as much as the authority con- 
ferred upon the first president of the United States by 
the Constitution has descended to his successors. The 
logic seems to me to be good, and if one accepts Cath- 
olic premises I do not see how he can escape Catholic 
conclusions. 

This theory of the powers and duties of the church 
was only very gradually developed. In the first three 
centuries at least, the Scriptures were freely used in 
the services of the church and the laity were encour- 
aged to study them in private; but heretics became 
numerous and troublesome, and, as they could not be 
refuted and silenced by argument, the church grew 
weary of the long conflict and when she became strong 



FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 215 



enough adopted the fatal policy of extirpating heresy 
by force. Measures to this end grew harsher and 
narrower by degrees, until in the year 1080, as a cli- 
max of bigotry and folly, Pope Gregory VII ordained 
that Latin should be the universal language of Catholic 
worship and consequently excluded all vernacular read- 
ings of Scripture in public assemblies. " In 1199 
Pope Innocent III prohibited the private possession 
and reading of Scripture (excepting the portions con- 
tained in the Breviary and the Psalter) without priestly 
permission and supervision," and to the present day 
" the ordinances of the Roman Catholic church imply 
that it is dangerous to give the Bible freely to the 
laity, and that therefore no vernacular versions ought 
to be used without interpretations from the fathers and 
an especial papal sanction." 

Jesus gives us a practical rule by which to judge 
all codes of laws and principles of government. His 
text is plain and simple and commends itself to every 
one's judgment. It is, By their fruits ye shall know 
them. We ask then, What have been the fruits of 
this policy? And the answer is, Persecution. Vast 
numbers of the most intelligent and virtuous people, 
men and women, whose reason and conscience rebelled 
against what they considered errors and corruptions, 
were imprisoned, tortured and put to death. The 
voice of dissent thus was largely silenced; for lack of 
opposition, and criticism the teaching of the clergy 
grew more and more negligent and perfunctory, and 
the people, uninstructed, sank into the grossest ig- 
norance and the most extravagant superstitions. With 
the decline of intelligence there was a corresponding 
decline of morality, till at length the greed, corrup- 
tion and tyranny of the church became absolutely 



216 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



intolerable, and the northern more remote nations, in 
that great revolt we call the Reformation, threw off 
the yoke of Rome. The Latin nations remained loyal 
to the Latin church for a while longer. In France 
the early Protestantism was quenched in blood, but 
alas ! with the death of religious liberty, civil liberty 
died also, till at length Louis the Fourteenth could 
say with a sneer, " The state, I am the state." France 
groaned under despotism for two hundred years and 
then in wild and bloody revolution fiercely asserted 
the native rights of man. 

History is said to be philosophy teaching by ex- 
ample and surely if history teaches anything, the 
Reformation and the French Revolution teach that 
society cannot prosper when knowledge is withheld and 
people are forbidden to think for themselves. 

Protestant principles have now had full sway in Ger- 
many, Scotland and the United States for several hun- 
dred years, and therefore in regard to them also, as 
well as regarding the Roman principles, we may ap- 
peal to history for a judgment. The Protestant re- 
formers, in order to combat the claims of the papacy, 
began their work by the translation of the Bible into 
the various vernacular languages. They appealed 
from the isolated and misinterpreted passages on which 
the Roman church based its pretensions, to the gen- 
eral tenor of the whole book. Luther was the pioneer 
in this work and the appearance in 1522 of his Ger- 
man translation caused great excitement not only in 
Germany, but in all the adjoining countries. The re- 
sults of Luther's daring act were discussed at every 
dinner table. In one such discussion William Tyndale, 
a young Oxford graduate, maintained with great earn- 
estness that Luther had done right. A Catholic priest 



PINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 217 

took him to task and declared in effect that the circu- 
lation of the Scriptures in the vernacular would un- 
dermine the authority of the church, and that the 
teaching of the church was more important than the 
Bible itself. Tyndale's answer was, " If God spare 
my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth 
the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou 
dost." Tyndale was already a good scholar, and from 
that time on devoted himself with increased earnest- 
ness to study in order to carry out his purpose of mak- 
ing a trustworthy English version of the Bible. He 
became skilled in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in Italian, 
Spanish, French and German. Tyndale redeemed his 
promise, and in 1525 issued that strong and beautiful 
English translation of the New Testament which is the 
basis of all later revisions and whose very words for 
the most part we still read. Before he could complete 
the Old Testament, he was arrested by the church au- 
thorities at the instance of Henry VIII and burnt as a 
heretic, his last words being the prayer, " Lord, open 
the King of England's eyes." 

We may believe that the martyr's prayer was an- 
swered, for in five years from this time it was ordained 
that the English Bible should be used in the services of 
the church and that copies of it should be placed on 
reading desks and be accessible to the people at all 
hours of the day. The literature of England in the 
early part of the 16th century was very scanty and 
the Bible soon became the one popular book. Cheap 
editions were multiplied. In those leisurely days, when 
there were no newspapers and magazines and few 
books, the Bible was read daily in connection with 
family worship in many thousands of homes, and the 
result of this loving and devout study in the home 



218 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



and of earnest and systematic exposition in the pulpit 
was that intense intellectual and spiritual life we call 
Puritanism, and Puritanism gave birth to the Congre- 
gational, Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist 
churches. Evangelical Protestantism represents a 
great forward step in the religious progress of the 
world. The men and women who have been educated 
to look upon the Bible as the only inspired word of 
God, have as a class been characterized by purity of 
life, by deep personal piety and by intense missionary 
zeal. Evangelical Protestantism was a return to the 
great spiritual principles of the Bible, to the aspira- 
tions of the psalmists, to the visions of the prophets, to 
the faith and hope and love of the apostles and mar- 
tyrs. Puritanism and Methodism were mighty strug- 
gles for complete victory over sin and for the attain- 
ment of every Christian virtue. What heroic and 
beautiful characters have been produced by faith in 
the Bible as the infallible word of God! 

If all this is true, and the half has not been told, 
why should we not seek to perpetuate the old belief? 
Orthodox people ask in sorrow and alarm why we dis- 
sent from a faith that has accomplished so much good. 
Some of them believe and say that the higher criticism 
of the Bible is undermining the very foundations of 
religion and morality, doing incalculable mischief. 
What answer can be given to these painful and terri- 
ble accusations? The answer I can give for myself, 
with clear conscience and full conviction, is that the 
charges are utterly untrue and rest upon ignorance 
and misapprehension. Similar charges were made 
against Jesus. For seeking to purify and spiritualize 
religion, he was put to death as a heretic and blas- 
phemer. He taught men to disregard many ancient 



FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 219 



laws and many ecclesiastical traditions, yet declared 
with perfect truth, I came not to destroy but to fulfil. 
In like manner, Paul, the greatest of the apostles, 
preached with all his energy against circumcision and 
many other ordinances of Moses, yet he too said with 
perfect truth, Do we make void the law? No, we es- 
tablish the law. The answer of Jesus and the answer 
of Paul are our defense. We too, according to our 
ability, are seeking not to destroy but to fulfil. 
We reject nothing in Protestantism that is good. We 
simply seek to carry its principles to their logical con- 
clusion and highest power. The spirit of primitive 
Christianity is an aspiration for perfect truth and per- 
fect righteousness. The keynote of the religion of 
the prophets and apostles and of Jesus Christ is, Listen 
to the voice of God, let the Holy Spirit lead you into 
all truth. Grow in grace, grow in virtue, grow in 
knowledge. 

The history of our religion is a history of progress 
from polytheism to Judaism, from Judaism to Chris- 
tianity, and from one stage of Christianity to another. 
A Methodist who traces back his spiritual pedigree will 
soon come to an Episcopalian ancestor, and a little fur- 
ther on he will find a Catholic progenitor, and still fur- 
ther back a worshiper of Thor and Woden, or a 
painted Druid who offered human sacrifices to the sun 
on altars of stone. 

Now we claim the same liberty as our ancestors. If 
it was right for them to follow their best light, it is 
right for us also. If it was right for the Druid to be- 
come a Christian, if it was right for the Catholic to 
become a Protestant, if it was right for the Episco- 
palian to become a Methodist, it must be right for the 
Methodist to become a Unitarian, if Unitarianism seems 



%%0 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



to him a truer and more spiritual type of religion. 
Those whose education has been such and whose 
minds are so constituted that the Bible seems to them 
to be a complete and infallible revelation in regard to 
religion, are in duty bound to live according to their 
belief; but those whose education has been such and 
whose minds are so constituted that the Bible, the great 
and wonderful and almost infinitely precious Bible, is 
still not a complete and final revelation, but only an 
earnest and foretaste of God's revelation of himself to 
man, are also in duty bound to live in accordance with 
their larger faith. Religion in our view is the growth 
of the soul, and it manifests itself in higher concep- 
tions of truth and nobler ideals of duty. All man's 
faculties and powers are given to him by the great 
Creator, and religion is a revelation only as art and 
science and literature and philosophy are revelations. 
Every science and every art is still growing. Nobody 
dreams for a moment of stationary science or of limit- 
ing the knowledge of mathematics, or of electricity or 
of chemistry to any one teacher or country, or book or 
set of books. Nobody thinks it improper to advance 
beyond Kepler and Newton and Laplace in astronomy, 
or beyond Linmeus and Cuvier and Humboldt and 
Darwin in botany and physiology ; yet there are very 
many people who shrink from any attempt to add to or 
in any way modify the religious teachings of the Jew- 
ish psalmists and prophets, evangelists and apostles. 
They refuse to attempt any work of criticism what- 
ever. What the Bible says is final. And so they con- 
tinue to believe that angels in bodily and visible form 
came down from heaven to announce the birth of Jesus ; 
they believe also that as angels heralded his approach 
so devils fled from him in fear and that he cast them 



FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 221 



out of many sick people. They believe that he sus- 
pended all the ordinary laws of Nature, that he multi- 
plied loaves and fishes, that he turned water into wine, 
that he walked upon the water, that he raised the dead, 
that Moses and Elijah returned to earth to talk with 
him, and that God himself descended in a cloud and 
said with an audible voice, " This is my beloved Son, 
hear ye him." 

Now there are many of us to whom these accounts 
seem to be primitive and erroneous or figurative and 
poetic conceptions. Considered as the beliefs of early 
days or as poetic figures, such myths are beautiful; 
but when we are asked to accept them as literal facts, 
they offend our sense of truth, and still more our feel- 
ings of reverence. In comparison with the majestic 
and beneficent uniformity of law which modern science 
teaches, all these primitive beliefs in the power of man 
over the elements and forces of Nature seem small and 
childish; and in comparison with the conception of 
God as an omnipresent spirit, all representations of 
a physical deity enveloped in a cloud and speaking 
with an audible voice, seem not merely untrue but most 
unworthy and derogatory to the majesty of the infinite 
God. 

If we cannot implicitly trust ourselves to the teach- 
ing of the church, if we cannot accept the Bible as an 
infallible revelation of divine truth, how are we to 
know what to believe and what to do ? As the light of 
the body is the eye, so the light of the soul is the rea- 
son. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. The 
sense of right and wrong is innate. The holy spirit 
of God enlighteneth every man that cometh into the 
world. The duty of every man is to obey his own con- 
science. A man must avoid all pride and self-suffi- 



222 FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 



ciency. He must humbly and patiently seek for light 
wherever he can obtain it; but in the last analysis he 
must determine his conduct by his own sense of right 
and wrong. It is the duty of a little child to obey 
his earthly parents, it is the duty of an adult to obey 
the heavenly Father. Wherein consists the greatness 
of the prophets and martyrs except in this, that they 
were obedient to the voice of God in the soul? Jesus 
calmly set aside every tradition and usage that con- 
flicted with his own ideal of duty, and his apostles did 
the same. When Peter and John were arrested and 
brought before the rulers and elders and commanded 
not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, their brief 
defense was, Whether it be right in the sight of God 
to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye; 
for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard. 

No doubt this doctrine, like all others, may be per- 
verted and abused, or narrowed and distorted ; and per- 
haps some will say that the history of the Quakers is a 
proof that belief in the guidance of the Holy Spirit 
is not enough to keep men from error and to inspire 
them with steady and well-directed zeal. There are 
few religious denominations of which so much good 
and so little evil may be truly said, and yet the Quak- 
ers do not seem to me to represent fully either the 
privileges or the duties of the religious life. Jesus 
tells us that the children of this world are wiser in their 
day and generation than the children of light, and 
what he said of the conduct of men in their secular 
affairs and in their religious life is still true. In all 
matters except religion, men try to learn from every 
available source of knowledge and they think closely 
and carefully for themselves. When people buy and 



FINAL AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 223 



sell, they get the best information they can and they 
use their own best judgment. We should all follow 
the same rule in regard to religion. We should learn 
about God and duty not only from the books wise and 
good men wrote two thousand years ago, but from the 
books wise and good men are writing now. But all the 
books in the world avail nothing without personal 
thought and effort. There is truth in Emerson's bold 
aphorism, Books are for the scholar's idle hour. Suc- 
cess is never attained by mere formula and theory. 
Every man who makes any great and notable success 
does so because he thinks for himself, solves new prob- 
lems, and decides difficult questions by his own judg- 
ment. This is true of the business man, of the inven- 
tor, of the artist, of the poet, and not less so of the 
saint and prophet. The religious faculties, like all 
other faculties, grow strong by exercise and become 
weak if they are unused. Every one sees at once how 
wicked it would be for a man not to use his hands and 
feet and eyes and ears; but the faculties of the mind 
are nobler than the organs of the body, and not to use 
reason and conscience is a greater sin than not to use 
the power of sight and hearing. Moses gave us a de- 
scription of the ideal Christian community when he de- 
clared, " Would God that all the Lord's people were 
prophets;" and Jesus gave us the law of the growth 
of the individual soul when he said, " Ask and ye shall 
receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be 
opened unto you, for every one that asketh receiveth 
and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh 
it shall be opened." 



PROGRESS 



" Greater Works Shall He Do." 

It is said that a pagan once came to Rabbi Hillel 
and said to him, " I will become a proselyte, if you 
will teach me the whole law while I stand on one leg." 
The requirement was unreasonable, but Hillel replied 
with perfect suavity : " Do not to thy neighbor what 
is unpleasing to thyself. This is the whole law ; all the 
rest is only commentary." 

It is related also that a man once asked Confucius to 
tell him the whole moral law in one word, and that the 
Chinese sage in reply gave him the word Reciprocity. 

If one were asked to give the teachings of modern 
science in a single word that word would be Evolution, 
or its equivalent, Progress. 

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of science, and 
one of the greatest of modern poets has given expres- 
sion to the common sentiment of men when he declares : 

" I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose 
runs 

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process 
of the suns." 

All the old dogmas about the infallibility of the Bi- 
ble, miracles, the Trinity, are losing their hold upon 
men's minds and are slowly and silently melting away. 
As a dead tree is disintegrated by the forces of Nature, 
as its decay is caused alike by the sunshine and the 
rain, so these dead creeds are decaying whether the 
churches that hold them are in the sunshine of appar- 
ent prosperity or in the shadow of obvious misfortune. 

224 



PROGRESS 225 

Yet, as Emerson says, " We measure a man's wisdom 
by his hope, and in all this decay there is no reason 
whatever for sadness." Decay is opportunity. Things 
last long enough to reward us for making them, and 
then when they wear out and we are compelled to make 
new ones, we have the chance to profit by the experi- 
ence of the past, to correct mistakes, to supply defects 
and to increase the beauty, convenience and utility of 
the product. In this way gardeners are continually 
producing better varieties of flowers and fruits and 
grains, and farmers better breeds of horses and cattle 
and all kinds of live stock. Manufacturers the world 
over are introducing more economical and efficient ma- 
chinery, and in all the secular world progress is re- 
garded as a matter of course. But when we come to 
religion there are some people who forget all about 
this, and look backward instead of forward. They tell 
us what has been, or what they think has been, and do 
not open their eyes to what might be and ought to be. 
The high churchman tells us that in the early centuries 
episcopacy was universal, that every city in Christen- 
dom had its bishop, and that for hundreds of years 
there was no such thing as a Congregational or Pres- 
byterian church to be found. The statement is, I be- 
lieve, utterly mistaken; but, assuming it to be true, 
what of it? Do we dream of confining ourselves in 
any other department of life to the knowledge and 
practice of antiquity and the dark ages? In these 
centuries to which churchmen appeal for their prec- 
edents, the mass of mankind were densely ignorant 
and grossly immoral. There were more slaves than 
freemen. Few people could read. There were no 
newspapers and no printed books. Men did not know 
the size or shape of the world they lived in. Their 
II — 15- 



226 PROGRESS 

knowledge of foreign lands was vague and inaccurate 
and the very existence of this continent was unknown. 
There were no national representative assemblies, no 
elected presidents, no self-government. The ancient 
world was imperial and episcopal, because the mass of 
the people were not fit for self-government in either 
state or church. But is Europe in the dark ages the 
model for America in the twentieth century? 

Such a view is not rational, nor is it Scriptural. 
The Bible is a record of man's religious progress from 
idolatry to Judaism and from Judaism to Christianity ; 
and the Christianity of Jesus is an aspiration for 
knowledge and virtue and progress unto perfection. 

The fourth gospel is a poem, not a history, and the 
words that I quote as a text may not have been actu- 
ally spoken by Jesus ; but they were accepted by the 
early church as representing his spirit, and they ac- 
cord with his general teaching that the Kingdom of 
God upon earth was to spread like leaven and to grow 
like mustard seed, and with his definition of the wise 
scribe and true religious teacher as one who brought 
out of his treasury things new as well as things old. 
So with dramatic truth Jesus is made to declare to his 
disciples : 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater 
works than these shall he do." 

" He who does not go forward goes backward," 
says Goethe. Shakespeare's language is still more 
forcible. 

" From hour to hour we ripe and ripe 
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot." 

Emerson says : " Nature abhors the old, and old age 
seems the only disease: all others run into this one. 



PROGRESS 



We call it by many names, — fever, insanity, crime: 
they are all forms of old age: they are rest, conserva- 
tism, inertia ; not newness, not the way onward." 

It is, however, not necessary to quote great names 
in support of so familiar a scientific truth as this. 
Every one knows that life in plant and animal, or in 
the body and mind of man, depends upon the power of 
the organism to rid itself of decayed and dead mate- 
rial, and to receive and assimilate fresh nutriment. 
Growth is life, the arrest of growth is death. 

History impressively teaches the same lesson. Na- 
tion after nation, civilization after civilization, has fal- 
len, because men in their blind conservatism have failed 
to see the signs of the times and to adapt themselves 
to the new demands and conditions. Nor is the church 
exempt from the same great law. It too must grow or 
die. 

How glorious were the ancient Jewish church and 
people ! Well does Gladstone call the psalms a mir- 
acle. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh. What purity, what love, what zeal must 
have been in the hearts of the ancient psalmists and 
prophets to create a literature so intense and so sub- 
lime! But the nation at large stoned or starved her 
prophets, and at last their voices ceased. The silence 
had lasted long when Jesus broke it and gave a last 
emphatic warning in the familiar words : " The King- 
dom of God shall be taken from you and given to a na- 
tion bringing forth the fruits thereof." 

Judaism missed its opportunity. It might have re- 
ceived its Messiah and grown from a national into a 
world religion. But it knew not the day of its visi- 
tation. The conservative element ruled, and Judaism 
now survives only as a shadow of its former self, a sort 



228 



PROGRESS 



of weird Life-in-Death, not able either to make con- 
verts or duly to nourish and train those who still cling 
to it. 

One great form of the Christian church is a similar 
strange and spectral figure. Primitive Christianity 
rapidly conquered all Pagan religions and philosophies. 
Faith in God and love to man were its resistless 
weapons. The church grew in power and splendor till 
it had supreme control of all Europe. But, as it grew 
rich and powerful, it also grew worldly and corrupt. 
It resisted the new truth and the new duty. Luther 
summoned it to repentance, but it refused. Nations 
fell away from it, and now for four hundred years it 
has been slowly decaying. There was much good in 
the Roman Catholic church at the time of the Refor- 
mation, there is much good in it now. Nevertheless, 
because of its conservatism, because of its inability to 
receive the new truth and do the new duty, it no lon- 
ger occupies the first place, is no longer the guiding 
star of modern civilization. The Roman church is 
slowly disintegrating. It has lost the intellectual 
classes. It has broken with philosophers and men of 
science. It worships dogma and tradition. The na- 
tions that adhere to it are the backward nations, and 
multitudes of its adherents are shaken in their loyalty. 

But let no Protestant point the finger of scorn at the 
colossal ruin. It remains to be seen whether any 
Protestant church will prevail as widely and endure as 
long. The Roman church continued its majestic ad- 
vance for fifteen hundred years before it reached its 
culmination and began its slow and impressive decline. 
It will not improbably outlive many a younger rival. 
Many of the smaller Protestant sects seem to have 
already reached their maturity, to have exhausted their 



PROGRESS 



229 



force and to have begun to decay. Other larger de- 
nominations are shaken by internal dissensions and are 
in danger of disruption. If any Protestant church is 
to outlive the Roman church, it will do so not by con- 
servatism but by continual development. Two theories 
in regard to Christianity are now contending for the 
mastery. One asserts that Christ organized a visible 
church, that he appointed apostles and their successors 
as his representatives to rule that visible church, that 
he established certain sacraments, the use of which is 
absolutely necessary to salvation, and that he made 
final and authoritative declarations of God's will and 
man's duties. For many centuries the Roman Catholic 
church has maintained this view. She has professed 
that her head was the vicar of Christ, that her teach- 
ing was infallible, that she had power to work miracles 
and to forgive sins. The ignorance of the laity in an- 
tiquity and in the middle ages favored the growth of 
her pretensions. Her claims have been developed to 
their logical conclusions, they are fortified by a vast 
literature both of controversy and devotion, and above 
all they are made pleasing and impressive by an elabo- 
rate ritual and by all the enchantments of architecture, 
sculpture, painting and music. Yet in spite of all 
her historic prestige and all her elements of strength, 
the Roman Catholic church is declining in every coun- 
try of Europe because she is unable and unwilling to 
abandon untenable dogmas and accept the new scientific 
and philosophical conceptions of the world. 

Opposed to the Roman Catholic conception of 
Christianity is that of modern liberalism, which teaches 
that Christ organized no church, ordained no priest- 
hood, established no sacraments, and left no code of 
laws or infallible body of doctrine, but that he taught 



230 



PROGRESS 



men that religion consisted in purity of heart and life, 
in love and gratitude to God and in love and kindness 
to fellow men. Modern liberals say that he desired 
not to form a new church but to regenerate society, 
to raise the standard of life, to make earth like heaven. 
They assert that he expected that his successors would 
do greater deeds than he had done and that they would 
continually discover new truths. He laid a foundation 
that others were to build on. He taught first princi- 
ples that others were to develop. 

It is evident that the Roman Catholic and the liberal 
views of Christ and Christianity are irreconcilable. 
One view is conservative and traditional, the other is 
radical and individual. Romanism and Liberalism are 
everywhere and in every particular in fierce and deadly 
conflict, and between the armies of these mighty, com- 
batants stand the perplexed and endangered Protestant 
churches. 

If any church seeks to strengthen itself by exalting 
dogma and the authority of the church, it immediately 
draws nearer to Rome and is in danger of absorption 
by it. If in flying from the superstitions, the errors, 
and the corruptions of Rome, it asserts the supremacy 
of the individual will and conscience, it dissolves its 
creed and scatters its adherents. Between the worship- 
ers of ritual and tradition on the one hand and the 
philosophers and men of science on the other, Protes- 
tant churches to-day are in deadly peril. My father 
was a Methodist preacher, I have had a life-long con- 
nection with the Methodist church. I have labored 
strenuously in its behalf, and I view its present condi- 
tion with sorrow and alarm. 

Methodism was once defined as Christianity in earn- 
est. It was once a working church. It was once 



PROGRESS 



231 



truly, said of Methodists, " They are all at it, and al- 
ways at it." Once every plain Methodist meeting 
house was full of enthusiastic worshipers at every 
service. Now churches are larger and more luxurious, 
but they are half filled and their congregations are cold 
and critical. Once the number of Methodists grew 
from year to year by leaps and bounds, now its annual 
increase is very small and in some localities and some 
branches of the church there has even been a decrease. 

The case is as bad or worse with orthodox Congre- 
gationalism. The Governor of New Hampshire issued 
a Fast Day proclamation in which he spoke of the 
alarming decline of Christianity in the rural districts 
of that state. There were many communities, he said, 
in which no religious services of any sort were held, in 
which marriages were performed by, the civil magis- 
trates and children left unbaptized. 

Now, " whatever is is right." Whatever grows de- 
serves to grow. Whatever dies ought to die. The 
present condition of the Protestant churches is God's 
warning that they are not doing their duty. Let us 
recur to Christ's teaching and in the light of it see if 
we can discover what our defects are. Jesus says : " He 
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do 
also; and greater works than these shall he do; be- 
cause I go unto the Father." John xiv, 12. God 
calls home his workers but carries on his work. 
Jesus expected greater works, and he also expected new 
discoveries of truth, for he said : " I will send you the 
spirit of truth and he will guide you unto all truth." 
John xvi, 3. Above all he expected an improvement 
in the daily life and relationships of men for he taught 
men to pray : " Our Father in heaven — Thy King- 
dom come." 



232 



PROGRESS 



These three utterances outline a majestic program 
of advance in knowledge, in power, in spirituality and 
in brotherly love. They are beyond the dreams of the 
great poet who sings: 

" All diseases quench'd by Science, no man halt or deaf 
or blind; 

Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind ? 
Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single 
tongue, — 

I have seen her far away, for is not Earth as yet so 
young? 

Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion 
kill'd, 

Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd, 
Robed in universal harvest, up to either pole she smiles, 
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless isles." 

But not to dwell upon the dreams and visions of the 
poets, is it not evident that our present industrial 
and social systems are far from satisfactory? Why is 
it that so many men are so very poor and so many oth- 
ers so enormously rich, that so many are unable to ob- 
tain work and so many others are compelled to work 
beyond their strength and are driven into premature 
decay and death? Why is it that so many wear rags 
and live in tenement houses, while others live in pal- 
aces and spend vast sums of money for jewels and 
silks and flowers and wines, paying for the expenses of 
a single ball more than an ordinary man can earn in 
a whole lifetime? 

The greed and selfishness of modern society spring 
from unbelief. Men pray to God and profess Christi- 
anity with their lips, but their real worship is given to 
Mammon. The example of Jesus is neglected, his 
teaching : " Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his 



PROGRESS 



233 



righteousness 99 is disregarded. For all this the church 
is responsible. The church does not rebuke worldli- 
ness, but has become worldly. The great business of 
the church, namely, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, 
clothe the naked, preach love to God and love to man, 
is subordinated to tradition, ceremony and routine, to 
mere perfunctory and academic discussion, to services 
which are artistic rather than devotional, professional 
singing and graceful oratory rather than stern and 
searching appeals to conscience, prophetic depth and 
fire. 

The church has fallen below her duty in practical 
good works, and she is not less backward in her atti- 
tude toward science. It is true that she has progressed 
amazingly in recent times. She has ceased to fulmi- 
nate against astronomy and geology, and her educated 
ministers have become respectful toward evolution. It 
is left now for Brother Jaspar and other negro preach- 
ers to prove from the Bible that " the sun do move." 
We no longer hear the argument that the antipodes 
cannot be inhabited because if there were any people 
there they could not see Christ at his second coming to 
Jerusalem and the Scripture says that " every eye 
shall see him." Rev. i, 7. Yet I have myself known a 
case in which a distinguished specialist in biology, a 
devout and conservative man, was requested by leading^ 
officers of the church of which he was a member to 
stop a course of Sunday lectures to adults, because 
the pastor and trustees disliked to hear even the most 
rigidly scientific and the most religiously reverent ex- 
pressions that in any way disturbed their prejudices 
and preconceptions. 

Of all the sources of weakness of the modern church 
this unwillingness to accept the demonstrable conclu- 



234 



PROGRESS 



sions of science, history and criticism is perhaps the 
greatest. Five days in the week every school and col- 
lege in the country is teaching more or less directly 
certain great principles about mind and matter which 
differ from the teaching of the church upon those sub- 
jects. Even in the lower grades of the public schools 
the children are taught enough about the uniformity 
of all natural processes to make them sceptical about 
many of the Scripture narratives of men thrown into 
a seven times heated furnace and coming out unsinged, 
of men turning water into blood, or a rod into a ser- 
pent, of the power of a prophet to make the iron head 
of an ax swim or to fill many large vessels with the 
contents of one small cruse of oil. By insisting that 
these legends are literally true and not the miscon- 
ceptions of an unscientific age, or stories told to illus- 
trate God's providential care, is to confuse the letter 
and the spirit and to weaken men's faith in every part 
of the volume. Now, as of old, many churches are 
making the word of God of no effect by their tradi- 
tions. The Scriptures, which should be a lamp unto 
men's feet and a light unto their path, are made a 
snare to them. Instead of the spirit which givethi 
life, they are taught to worship the letter which bring- 
eth death. 

Consider how erroneous the view that man needs an 
infallible Scripture as a rule so positive and unmis- 
takable that he shall have no need to exercise his own 
faculty of discrimination. If any man's arm were 
tied down so that he could not move it, it would quickly 
shrivel away and become paralyzed. If a man were 
shut up in a dark room so that his eyes were not ex- 
ercised, he would in time lose the power of vision, like 
the eyeless fishes in the Mammoth cave. A man in 



PROGRESS 



235 



solitary confinement and without occupation, sinks 
into imbecility and idiocy. Equally true is this of the 
spiritual faculties. Deprive the soul of spiritual prob- 
lems upon which to exercise itself, and spiritual decay 
and death are the result. Let us not complain of the 
perplexities and the discipline to which God in his 
wisdom has subjected us. They are for our good. 

It is very true that the exercise of his own judg- 
ment exposes man to many mistakes. Moral responsi- 
bility is a dangerous thing; but to throw it off is not 
merely dangerous, it is fatal, suicidal. A man must 
think for himself, or cease to be a man at all. He may 
rightly avail himself of advice and help ; but if he does 
not in the last analysis hold sacred his own judgment 
and conscience and make them the guide of his con- 
duct, he ceases to be an independent moral agent and 
thus destroys the possibility of moral life and growth. 

We are saved by a true and living faith, and not by 
a blind and undiscriminating credulity. We need 
faith in the dispensations of the Holy Spirit, faith to 
believe that God has more truth than is contained in 
the creed or the catechism or in the teachings of Peter 
or Paul or John, or even in the teachings of Jesus 
while on earth; for did he not say that new truth 
should be revealed after his departure and that the 
Holy Spirit should lead men into all truth. 

If the existing church organizations are to per- 
petuate their life and usefulness, they must speedily set 
about revising their creeds and rituals, their theological 
text-books and hymns, and above all they must take up 
more earnestly the establishment of personal and social 
righteousness. They must care for the neglected 
poor. They must see to it that every man has a chance 
to live. That every one able to work has the oppor- 



236 



PROGRESS 



tunity to do so, and receives the just reward of his 
toil. The church must assimilate every truth, must 
utilize every art, must do every duty. The true, the 
beautiful, and the good must be invited into perfect 
harmony. 

The tasks before the church are very great; but 
they are not impossible to faith, for faith can remove 
mountains. Most of the poverty, disease and sorrow 
among men spring from preventable causes; they are 
due to ignorance, and sin, and it is the purpose of 
God as revealed in the gospel to overcome both sin 
and ignorance, to transform earth into heaven and 
man into the image of his Creator. 

Progress unto perfection is the law of God, graven 
upon the rocks, visible in plant and bird and beast, 
taught by the history of every man and every nation. 
Whoever opposes this law of progress fights against 
the stars in their courses : with impious folly he " de- 
fies the Omnipotent to arms " and vainly runs against 
the thick bosses of the Almighty's buckler. Or to use 
the figure of Jesus : " Whosoever shall fall upon this 
stone shall be broken, and upon whomsoever this stone 
shall fall it will grind him to powder." 

Instead of perishing like the Jewish church and 
the Roman church may the modern churches go for- 
ward to greater works, to larger truths, to universal 
faith, hope and love and so be, because they deserve to 
be, immortal. 

The church needs to revert to the teaching of Jesus 
that there is to be a Kingdom of God upon earth, and 
the endeavor of all followers of Christ ought to be to 
promote education, sanitary conditions of labor, just 
compensation for work and just distribution of natural 
resources. 



THE PSALMS 



The Book of Psalms was the liturgy of the Jewish 
church. It is the finest product of Hebrew piety, a 
chosen collection of the noblest and most beautiful of 
the songs of Israel. It is a record of the spiritual life 
of the nation as a whole, and it also expresses the peni- 
tence, the hope, the fear, the love, the joy of the in- 
dividual worshiper and seeker after God. 

In the psalms that I shall read this morning, I shall 
not follow strictly the text of the authorized version, 
but in order to secure greater clearness or a better em- 
phasis, adopt readings from the Golden Treasury 
Psalter, the translation of Dr. Oort, and other sources ; 
and f or the same reasons when a psalm treats of several 
subjects or contains digressions, I shall omit all pas- 
sages that weaken or obscure the principle thought. 

It is instructive to notice that the very first psalm 
is in praise of the good man in private life. Among 
the heathen nations of antiquity, the King was a demi- 
god, who ruled by divine right as the representative of 
God upon earth. Even among the Jews Kingship 
was very highly honored, as is evidenced by the fact 
that the word King occurs in the Bible nearly 3,000 
times, or on the average once in every 300 words. If 
it were used at regular, instead of irregular intervals, 
it would appear on every page of the book from the 
beginning to the end. And yet the first psalm is not 
about the King, but about the good man, without any 
reference to his wealth or social station or any sec- 
ondary or external source of honor. It shows to my 
mind that even during the greatest splendor of the 

237 



£38 



THE PSALMS 



Jewish monarchy, Israel remained true to the concep- 
tion that God was the only real King and that he was 
no respecter of persons, but judged and rewarded every 
man according to his character and work. The first 
psalm reads thus : 

" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel 
of the ungodly, 
Nor standeth in the way of sinners, 
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, 
But his delight is in the law of the Lord 
And in his law doth he meditate day and night. 
He shall be like a tree planted by a river 
That bringeth forth fruit in due season; 
His leaf also shall not wither, 
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 
It is not so with the ungodly, 

For they are like chaff which the wind driveth away. 
The ungodly will not be able to stand in the judg- 
ment, 

Sinners shall not remain in the congregation of the 
righteous ; 

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, 
But the way of the ungodly shall perish." 

What a vivid and instructive picture this short mas- 
terpiece presents ! It shows how closely the types of 
human character of two thousand years ago resemble 
those that now exist. The psalmist speaks of the un- 
godly who neglect religion, but still observe moral re- 
straints, of the wicked who are without scruple and 
indulge all their vicious inclinations, and of the scoff- 
ers who delight to ridicule religion and to find flaws 
in the character of the devout. 

In contrast with these is the good man who medi- 
tates continually on the law of God. He has a spirit- 
ual life. The wicked are spiritually dead. He is like 



THE PSALMS 



239 



a fruitful tree watered by an everflowing stream. The 
ungodly are only worthless chaff. He hopes and be- 
lieves that sooner or later society will be freed from its 
useless and vicious members, and that a community of 
the wise and good, a Kingdom of God upon earth will 
be established and last forever. 

The reign of David was by the Jewish poets re- 
garded as the golden age of Israel. They loved to 
dwell upon his victories over all his enemies, and upon 
the peace and prosperity of Israel under his wise and 
just administration. They hoped that his dynasty 
would last forever. A passage in the 89th psalm 
reads as follows: 

" Thou spakest in vision to a holy man and saidst, 
I have laid help upon one that is mighty, 
I have exalted one chosen out of the people, 
I have found David my servant, 
With my holy oil have I anointed him, 
My hand shall hold him fast, 
And my arm shall strengthen him; 
The enemy shall not be able to do him violence, 
The wicked man shall not hurt him, 
I will smite down his foes before his face 
And plague them that hate him. 
My truth also and my mercy shall be with him 
And in my name shall he be exalted : 
I will set his dominion over the sea, 
And his right hand over the floods. 
He shall say unto me ; Thou art my Father, 
And I will make him my firstborn, 
Higher than the Kings of the earth; 
My mercy will I keep for him forever 
And his throne shall be as the days of heaven. 
If his children forsake my law 
And walk not according to my judgments, 
If they break my statutes 



240 



THE PSALMS 



And keep not my commandments, 

I will visit their offenses with the rod 

And I will punish their sin with the scourge. 

Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly 

take from them, 
Nor suffer my truth to fail; 
My covenant will I not break, 
Nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips : 
I have sworn by my holiness 
That I will not fail David! 
His seed shall endure forever, 
His throne shall be as permanent as the sun, 
It shall stand fast as long as the moon shines in the 

sky." 

The first test of the power of the dynasty of David 
took place immediately after the death of the great 
king. David had conquered Edom and put to death 
most of the claimants to the throne of that country ; 
but one of the princes called Hadad had escaped into 
Egypt and for personal and diplomatic reasons had 
been received with great honor and had married the 
sister of the queen. Nevertheless, Hadad felt dissat- 
isfied in the splendid exile, and as soon as he heard 
of the death of David, he thought that his oppor- 
tunity had come to return to his own country and to 
claim his hereditary throne. Rezon, the King of 
Syria, who had been held in awe by the warlike David, 
attempted to throw off the yoke of the young and 
untried Solomon; Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, one of 
Solomon's great officers, also rose in rebellion against 
the king. But Solomon took vigorous measures to 
maintain his authority, and his people trusting in God, 
looked forward with confidence to victory in the im- 
pending struggle. Some poet of the court gave ex- 
pression to the national feeling in the following 



THE PSALMS 



241 



spirited psalm, the second according to the numbering 
in the authorized English version of the Bible. 

" Why do the nations rage 
And the peoples imagine a vain thing? 
The Kings of the earth stand up, 
And the rulers take counsel together 
Against Jehovah and against his anointed: 
Saying, Let us break their bands asunder, 
Let us cast away their cords from us! 
He that hath his throne in heaven shall laugh, 
The Lord shall have them in derision; 
He shall speak unto them in his wrath 
And terrify them in his sore displeasure; 
Saying, It is I who have anointed my King, 
It is I who have established his throne upon Mount 
Zion. 

Let me tell of the covenant. 

Jehovah said unto the King: Thou art my son, 

This day have I adopted thee. 

Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for 
thine inheritance, 

And the utmost parts of the earth for thy posses- 
sion; 

Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, 
Thou shalt break them in pieces like a potter's 
vessel. 

Be wise, therefore, ye that are judges of the earth, 

Serve Jehovah with reverence, 

Quake and tremble before him! 

Take warning lest he be angry and ye perish ; 

For his wrath is quickly kindled: 

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." 

The Christian church has felt that the greatness of 
dominion and greatness of rank here ascribed to Solo- 
mon were not actually his, and so this psalm is called 

a Messianic and the prediction it contains is trans- 
II— 16— Ga, 



THE PSALMS 



f erred to the person and reign of Jesus. The hopes 
of humanity continually rise higher and become more 
pure and spiritual, and it is perfectly natural and 
proper that the title of Son of God thus has been trans- 
ferred from the great earthly ruler, the magnificent 
and worldly Solomon, to the most sublime figure of 
Jesus who sought to establish a purely spiritual King- 
dom. But, however proper the change of the ascrip- 
tion of sonship from Solomon to Jesus may be, there 
is no doubt as to the meaning of the writer of the 
psalm. The whole psalm is an amplification of the 
words of David in the book of Chronicles, " The Lord 
God of Israel said unto me: Solomon, thy son, shall 
build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him 
to be my son and I will be his father." 

The forty-fifth psalm is a description of a royal 
wedding. The poet first addresses the bridegroom in 
a high strain of eulogy, praising his wisdom, his elo- 
quence, his magnificent appearance, his military prow- 
ess and the greatness of his empire, and then dwells 
rapturously upon the beauty of the bride and her 
richly embroidered robes, and, bidding her forget her 
native land and the glory of her fathers, he predicts 
that her posterity shall reign forever upon the throne 
of Israel. The psalm reads as follows: 

" My heart is full of a great theme. 
I am singing a song about the King, 
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. 
Thou art fairer than the children of men. 
Grace has been given to thy lips: 
God has blessed thee forever: 
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh 
And in thy majesty ride on. 

Thy throne is God's throne and endureth forever, 
The sceptre of thy Kingdom is a righteous sceptre; 



THE PSALMS 



243 



Thou lovest right and hatest wrong. 

Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the 

oil of gladness. 
All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia; 
The music of the harp in thy ivory palaces makes 

thee glad! 

Upon thy right hand stands the Queen in gold of 
Ophir. 

Hearken, O daughter, consider and incline thine ear, 
Forget thine own people and thy father's house. 
The princess approacheth in glorious apparel, 
Her mantle is made of cloth of gold, 
In embroidered robes is she brought unto the King, 
Her bridesmaids bear her company. 
With joy and gladness they are brought 
And enter into the King's palace. 
Instead of thy fathers thou shalt have children 
Whom thou mayest make princes in all the land. 
I will tell of thy name from one generation to an- 
other, 

And the people shall give praise unto thee world with- 
out end! " 

But high hopes are sometimes destined to disap- 
pointment. Nations, like men, have their youth, their 
maturity, their decline and their extinction, and there 
came a time to Israel when the glories of David and 
Solomon were only a memory with which Israel con- 
soled itself in its present abasement and distress. We 
read that in the reign of Jehoiachim, Nebuchadnezzar, 
the King of Babylon, came up against Jerusalem and 
besieged it. And he captured the city and carried out 
thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord and 
the treasures of the King's house, and he carried away 
all the princes and mighty men of valor and all the 
workmen and smiths, and left none save the poorest 
sort of the people; and he carried away Jehoiachim, 



THE PSALMS 



the King, to Babylon, and made Zedekiah his father's 
brother, King in his stead. For nine years Zedekiah 
was submissive to Babylon, and then he rebelled. Once 
more the armies of Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem 
and laid seige to the city. The city was prepared for 
the attack and its long and obstinate resistance roused 
Nebuchadnezzar to extreme anger, so that when, after 
eighteen months of hard fighting, it was finally cap- 
tured, the victors showed no mercy. They slew the sons 
of Zedekiah in his presence, and then put out his eyes 
that he might never, by seeing other things, diminish 
the dreadful clearness with which that vision of horror 
dwelt in his memory. Moreover, Nebuchadnezzar 
burnt the house of the Lord and the King's house and 
all the houses of Jerusalem, every great man's house 
burnt he with fire. 

The enemies of Israel added to the bitterness of the 
calamity by their rejoicings. The Ammonites clapped 
their hands, the Moabites sneered, and the men of 
Tyre said with exultation, Aha, Jerusalem that was 
the gate of the people is broken, we shall be replen- 
ished now that she is laid waste. The destruction of 
the city and the cruel rejoicings of rival nations are 
the subject of the 79th psalm in which the writer la- 
ments and prays as follows: 

" O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance, 
They have defiled thy holy temple, 
They have made Jerusalem a heap of stones. 
They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be 

meat for the birds of the air 
And the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the field: 
For there was no man to bury them. 
We are become a reproach to our neighbors, 
A scorn and derision to them that are round about us. 
O Lord, wilt thou be angry with us forever? 



THE PSALMS 



245 



Pour out thine indignation upon the heathen 
And upon the Kingdoms that have not worshipped thee. 
Deliver us and be merciful unto our sins. 
Wherefore should the heathen say: ' Where is now their 
God?' 

Punish them, O Lord, sevenfold, 
And we thy people will give thee thanks forever; 
And will show forth thy praise from generation to 
generation." 

Many years elapsed before the deliverance prayed 
for was obtained, and during their long exile in Baby- 
lon, the Jewish minstrels strove to mitigate the bitter- 
ness of their captivity by singing the hymns in which 
they had delighted in their time of prosperity in their 
native land. Their sweet singing was admired by the 
Babylonians ; but the admiration of the strangers was 
only another sorrow to the proud and passionate heart 
of the Jewish psalmists. They did not like to have 
their sacred music thought of as a mere artistic ac- 
complishment, and resented the requests made of them 
to show their skill with harp and voice. But even 
grief furnishes a subject for song and the sorrows of 
the exile have themselves been turned into plaintive 
melodies. The poet sings sadly in the 137th psalm : 

" By the rivers of Babylon we sat down in sorrow, 
Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion ; 
We hanged our harps upon the willows, 
For they that had carried us away captive required of 
us a song, 

And they that wasted us asked for melody, 
Saying, ' Sing us one of the songs of Zion/ 
How could we sing the song of Jehovah in a strange 
land? 

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning, 



246 



THE PSALMS 



If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth." 

It seems strange that this plaintive patriotism should 
suddenly change into ferocity and that this sweet psalm 
should end with the terrible words : 

" O Daughter of Babylon, that wasteth us with bondage, 
Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast 
served us; 

Yea, happy shall he be that taketh thy children 
And dasheth them against the stones." 

Equally bitter were the curses which the Jews hurled 
against those of their number who, renouncing their 
nationality, took office under the Babylonians and 
joined in the oppression of Israel. Of such a traitor 
the psalmist speaks when he prays: 

" Let his days be few, 
Let another take his office; 
Let his children be fatherless 
And his wife a widow; 
Let his children be vagabonds and beg, 
And let their home be empty and desolate. 
Let the extortioner consume all that he hath, 
Let the stranger lay hold of all his possessions; 
Let there be no man to have pity on him, 
Nor compassion upon his fatherless children; 
Let his posterity be destroyed, 
Let the name of his family be utterly obliterated; 
O God, root out their memorial from the earth." 

It seems surprising that these and similar maledic- 
tions should have been admitted to the liturgy of the 
ancient Jewish church, and it is still more surprising 
that any part of the Christian church should still make 
them a portion of its regular ritual, for their vindictive 



THE PSALMS 



247 



spirit has been superseded and rebuked by him who 
said, " Love your enemies, bless them that curse you and 
pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute 
you 99 ; who himself in his last hour prayed for his mur- 
derers in the words, " Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." 

The Israelitish captives in Babylon had no power 
to free themselves and there seemed to be no external 
deliverer, yet deliverance came. History is so full of 
strange surprises that popular philosophy has crystal- 
lized into the proverb : The unexpected is sure to hap- 
pen. The Babylonian monarchy seemed to be at the 
height of its power when it was suddenly overthrown. 
Belshazzar was slain and Cyrus the Persian became 
ruler over his dominions. Cyrus took the Jews under 
his patronage and encouraged and assisted them to 
rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem. When the 
proclamation of the King giving them liberty was first 
issued, the Jews could hardly believe their good fortune 
was real. The news to the hopeless exiles seemed too 
good to be true, or, as the poet beautifully expresses it 
in the 126th psalm: 

" When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, 
Then were we like unto them that dream: 
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, 
And our tongue with joy; 
Then said they among the heathen: 
* The Lord hath done great things for us.' " 

The difficulties of the exiles were not, however, at 
an end when they were restored to their own country. 
Their neighbors were jealous and hostile and they suf- 
fered from drought and consequent scarcity of food. 
Under these discouraging conditions, when it was diffi- 
cult for the returned exiles to build their own homes 



248 



THE PSALMS 



and to provide for their ordinary needs, it is not very 
surprising that the work of rebuilding the temple was 
postponed till the times should be more propitious. 
So year after year slipped by till seventeen years had 
passed and still the temple was not rebuilt. Then the 
prophet Haggai could no longer contain his indigna- 
tion. Time after time he declared to the people that 
the drought was God's punishment upon them for their 
worldliness and impiety, and he urged them to build 
the temple and by so doing obtain God's favor and 
blessing. In the 127th psalm, the same view is ex- 
pressed; with more quiet poetic beauty to these men 
who are so anxious about building their homes and 
fortifying the city and think that the temple can wait 
till these more pressing and practical needs are met, 
the psalmist says with gentle rebuke: 

" Except the Lord build the city 
Their labor is but lost that build it, 
Except the Lord keep the city 
The watchman watcheth but in vain: 
It is but lost labor to rise up early, 
To sit up late and to eat the bread of care: 
Take needed rest by night, 
God giveth his beloved sleep." 

During the long period of the exile in Babylon the 
people had been persistently taught that the calamities 
that had overtaken the nation were a punishment for 
sin. The law was God's covenant with his people. 
Those who kept it enjoyed his favor and continual 
blessing. Those who neglected or wilfully broke the 
law brought upon themselves God's displeasure and 
consequent suffering and sorrow. Under the influ- 
ence of this teaching many psalms in praise of the law 
were written. Of these the 119th is the longest and 



THE PSALMS 



249 



most artificial. It consists of twenty-two stanzas, each 
containing eight double lines or verses, and every line 
of every stanza speaks in some way of the greatness 
of the law. These twenty-two stanzas are designated 
by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, be- 
cause each of the eight verses in the first stanza begins 
with the letter A, each verse of the second stanza begins 
with B, each verse of the third stanza with C, and so 
on to Y, which is the concluding Hebrew letter. In 
the nature of the case stanzas made under a mechan- 
ical restraint of this kind cannot have any high poetic 
inspiration. The 119th psalm is an exercise of pious 
ingenuity, an interesting literary curiosity rather than 
a true poem; yet with all its artificiality of arrange- 
ment and monotony of theme it contains some noble and 
memorable phrases. The translators of the authorized 
English version of the Scriptures did not reproduce the 
original peculiarities of form in this psalm, and, while 
their reason for not doing so can only be conjectured, it 
can hardly have been that they considered prolonged al- 
literation too undignified a literary device for religious 
use, seeing that the Hebrew poet had employed it. It 
is more probable that the translators considered it im- 
possible both to maintain the exact form and to repro- 
duce the exact sense of the original, and in this di- 
lemma they wisely preferred the sense to the form. 
Other scholars have made the attempt from which the 
translators of the King James' version shrank, and an 
English reader may get some impression of the He- 
brew from the alliterative version in the Golden Treas- 
ury Psalter. One stanza will suffice as an illustra- 
tion. I will read the third devoted to the letter C. 
It runs thus: 



250 



THE PSALMS 



" Comfort thy servant that I may live and keep thy word. 
Come thou and open mine eyes, that I may see the 

wondrous things of thy law. 
Consider that I am a stranger upon the earth; O hide 

not thy commandments from me: 
Consumed is my soul by the very fervent desire that it 

hath always unto thy judgments. 
Confounded are the proud and cursed are they that do 

err from thy testimonies. 
Contempt and reproach do thou turn from me, for I 

have kept thy testimonies ! 
Counsel have princes taken against me, but thy servant 

is occupied in thy statutes, 
Continually is my delight in thy testimonies, for they 

are my counsellors." 

There are eight other psalms which have a similar 
alphabetic arrangement, which was probably originally 
adopted as an aid to the memory. 

A far more spontaneous, joyous and beautiful psalm 
upon the law than the one just spoken of is the 19th, 
which declares: 

" The law of the Lord is perfect and refresheth the soul. 
The testimony of the Lord is true and giveth wisdom 

unto the simple: 
The statutes of the Lord are right and bring joy unto 

the heart, 

The commandment of the Lord is pure and enlighteneth 
the eyes. 

The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth forever, 
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 
gether, 

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much 
fine gold, 

Sweeter also are they than honey and the honeycomb. 

By them is thy servant taught, 

And in keeping them there is great reward. 



THE PSALMS 



251 



Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my 
heart 

Be acceptable in thy sight, 

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." 

None of the Hebrew poets had the power of sus- 
tained thought, and the artistic sense of proportion 
found in Homer and Virgil and Milton; consequently 
Hebrew literature was never adorned by an epic poem. 
The nearest approach to a national history in verse 
is afforded by the psalms; for, as we have in some 
measure seen, every experience of national triumph or 
disaster, and every hope or fear of the individual soul, 
is the subject of a psalm, and as the church in all ages 
has to contend with the world and the soul has always 
to meet the same temptations, the psalms are to us, as 
they were to ancient Israel, at once the record and the 
inspiration of the collective and of the individual re- 
ligious life. It is true that some of the psalms are 
no longer regarded as fitting expressions of religious 
thought and feeling; but the unworthy and vindictive 
utterances are the exception and the great body of the 
Hebrew lyric poetry breathes a spirit of pure and sub- 
lime piety. 

The psalms have as their fundamental theme the in- 
finite power and wisdom and goodness of God, and the 
longing of the soul of man to attain to perfect holiness 
and to perfect joy. 

" As the hart panteth after the water-brooks 
So panteth my soul after thee, O God. 
In thy presence is fulness of joy, 
At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. 
I shall behold thy face in righteousness, 
I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." 



THE CHARACTER AND WORK OF JESUS 



Jesus said, " I receive not honor from men," yet no 
one who ever lived has been the subject of so much and 
such varied eulogy. In this respect, as in so many 
others, he illustrates the truth of his saying, " He that 
saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life 
shall save it." It is because he rejected the temptation 
to seek fame, and with a single eye pursued the path 
of duty, that his unparalleled fame has come to him. 
The conventional anniversary of his birth is celebrated 
throughout Christendom with song, story, festivity, 
and adoration. Each religious communion has its own 
peculiar liturgy of praise and its own special symbols 
of honor; but amid all these diversities of expression 
there is an underlying agreement that Jesus is our 
greatest teacher and our highest example. We all 
join in the words of Whittier: 

" O Lord and Master of us all, 
Whate'er our name or sign, 
We own thy sway, we hear thy call, 
We test our lives by thine." 

Laying aside all metaphysical speculations and all 
theological dogmas, I wish to speak very simply of the 
actual work and character of Jesus, believing that the 
facts of his life are in themselves the highest praise that 
can be given him and that anything beyond the truth, 
however well intended it may be, detracts from rather 
than adds to his intrinsic greatness. Passing over 
then the mythological stories of his birth, let us look 
briefly at the historic facts as they are given in the 

252 



THE WORK OF JESUS 253 



earliest records. When John the Baptist began to 
preach, " Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at 
hand," great multitudes flocked to hear him, and this 
fact is in itself evidence that the times were ripe for 
just such a message. It was an age in which priests 
and scribes were supreme, an age in which all the ex- 
ternal rules of religion were minute and rigid, but the 
spirit of religion was wanting and the Hebrew church 
amid all its outward splendor was worldly and corrupt. 

For four hundred years there had been no great 
prophet and Israel longed for one, longed in this 
spiritual drought for the kind of teacher of whom it is 
said, " His words shall come down like rain upon the 
mown grass; like showers that water the earth." 

Accordingly the teaching of John met a response 
in many hearts, and in none a more eager reception 
than in that of Jesus. It is evident that he had long 
meditated upon the same theme, perhaps had re- 
proached himself for not uttering the thoughts upon 
which he had been brooding. If there were any such 
self-reproach for delay, it explains to us the fact that 
though John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, 
Jesus desired to receive it, and found it helpful to his 
religious life. Baptism brought to him a clearer sense 
of his duty and a deeper consecration to it. Yet it 
was not without a hard struggle with himself that 
Jesus determined to take up the work of a prophet. 
No really great reformer ever entered upon his re- 
form without shrinking and fears. The man who 
dares to rebuke the sins of a nation, and especially the 
man who seeks to correct long-standing and deeply 
rooted abuses in the church, has a very difficult and 
very dangerous task. The smallest knowledge of his- 
tory and the commonest measure of foresight will tell 



254 THE WORK OF JESUS 



him that he will raise a storm of opposition, that he 
will be jeered at and insulted by the ignorant and the 
prejudiced and suspiciously watched by the authori- 
ties, and that if he should escape death by the violence 
of the mob or by judicial murder, his life will at best 
be one of incessant and poorly requited labor and of 
painful controversy. 

The gospels give us a very dramatic account of the 
temptation of Jesus, to turn aside from the hard path 
of duty and to enter one of the more alluring walks 
of ambition. We are told that Satan offered him all 
the Kingdoms of the world, if he would only fall down 
and worship him. Translating his figurative lan- 
guage, I understand it to mean that Jesus saw clearly 
that to preach repentance to the people and to rebuke 
the hypocrisy of the priesthood, would involve the sac- 
rifice of all the ordinary ambitions and enjoyments of 
life. 

The spirit of prudence and self-love said, Why must 
I undertake this work, why not let somebody else do it, 
some one of more learning and influence, who can do 
it more effectively? Why should I renounce home and 
comfort and the opportunity to rise in the world, to 
undertake the great task of reforming a religion? 
Perhaps if I do my utmost I shall accomplish very 
little, perhaps fail altogether and sacrifice the joys of 
life and even life itself in attempting the impossible. 
He prayed to God for guidance and strength, and God 
showed him his duty and gave him power to do it. 

Jesus came from the desert and joined his voice to 
that of John in proclaiming the message, Repent, for 
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Hardly had he 
done so, when John was thrown into prison and the 
whole responsibility of continuing the work was left 
with Jesus. 



THE WORK OF JESUS 255 



Jesus began to preach with greater earnestness and 
power and moreover began to heal the sick. He first 
discovered that he had power to do so by quieting an 
insane man who interrupted him as he was preaching 
in the synagogue. His fame immediately spread 
abroad. He was hailed as a new Elijah or Elisha with 
power over diseases and evil spirits, and everywhere 
he went people brought the lame and the blind, the 
deaf and the dumb, the paralytic and the insane, that he 
might lay his hands upon them. Jesus had compas- 
sion upon these poor people. He went from sufferer 
to sufferer, and with kind looks and gentle touch, he 
told them to have faith in God. Contemporary ru- 
mor exaggerated and later tradition has still farther 
magnified the number and the character of the cures 
effected by Jesus, but that he had most remarkable 
powers and that he restored many sick people to health, 
that he filled the desponding with new hope, and that 
he brought out in a most extraordinary way all the 
recuperative forces both physical and moral that hu- 
man nature possesses, seems to me incontrovertible. 

He would not have continued the practice if he had 
not been convinced that he was doing good and that it 
was his duty to give the sick all the help in his power. 
As he journeyed from village to village and city to 
city his fame preceded him, and everywhere the crip- 
pled and infirm awaited his coming with eagerness. 
They were there on the Sabbath with just the same 
wistful looks and with just the same claims to pity 
as on other days, and Jesus felt just the same obliga- 
tion and desire on the Sabbath as on any other day to 
do what he could to relieve their sufferings by his 
touch of sympathy and his words of hope. But nar- 
row-minded and bigoted officials, jealous of their au- 



256 THE WORK OF JESUS 



thority, did not like this breach of the fourth com- 
mandment, and of the tradition of the Scribes and 
Pharisees. These expounders of the law taught that 
all the misfortunes of Israel were punishments for sin 
and that one of the sins for which especially God had 
visited them in anger was Sabbath breaking. Accord- 
ingly they were determined to purge the nation of this 
guilt and so they laid down very rigid and exact laws, 
prescribing how the Sabbath was to be observed. 
Cannon Farrar asserts that " according to the stiff 
and narrow school of Shammai, no one on the Sab- 
bath might even comfort the sick or enliven the sorrow- 
ful — The sick might not send for a physician. A 
person with lumbago might not rub or foment the af- 
fected part." But these deaf and dumb and blind and 
lame, these epileptics and paralytics were chronic suf- 
ferers. It is not surprising that in many cases rulers 
of the synagogues should look upon such cases as in- 
curable and regard any effort to heal them by faith as 
quite useless. At any rate there was no need to pro- 
fane the Sabbath, for these diseases had been borne 
for years and certainly could be endured for one day 
more. So reasoned hard-hearted, narrow-minded, 
sceptical and bigoted officials ; but the pity of the com- 
passionate heart of Jesus was not checked by their ec- 
clesiastical scruples. Luke gives us the following 
instance of an encounter between Jesus and one of 
these formal and scrupulous officers. " As he was 
teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, be- 
hold there was a woman who had had a spirit of in- 
firmity eighteen years and was bowed together and 
could in no wise lift herself up. And when Jesus saw 
her, he called her to him and said, Woman, thou art 
loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands 



THE WORK OF JESUS 257 



on her and immediately she was made straight and 
glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue an- 
swered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed 
on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people, There 
are six days in which men ought to work; in them 
therefore come and be healed and not on the Sabbath 
day. The Lord then answered him and said, Thou 
hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath, 
lose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away 
to watering? And ought not this woman, a daughter 
of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound these eighteen 
years, to be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? 
And when he had said these words all his adversaries 
were ashamed, and all the people rejoiced for all the 
glorious things that were done by him." 

Reports of the new prophet, of his captivating elo- 
quence, of his wonderful cures, of his disregard of the 
law and defiance of the local authorities, very soon 
reached the ears of the chief priests and the scribes in 
Jerusalem, and they sent a committee to Galilee to in- 
vestigate. The coming of these great officials from 
the national capital was a new and severe test of the 
courage of Jesus ; but unlike thousands of others, who 
begin to walk in the thorny and perilous path of the 
reformer, Jesus did not turn back, equivocate or halt. 
These great dignitaries began by inquiring about his 
general conduct. They learned that he was alto- 
gether unconventional and indifferent to the cere- 
monial law, that he ate when he was hungry even on a 
fast day, that he washed his hands when they needed 
washing and did not go through the form of washing 
them when they were already clean even at the times 
appointed by Jewish tradition, and that the worst re- 
ports they had heard about his disregard of the Sab- 
11—17- 



258 THE WORK OF JESUS 



bath were justified by the facts. The committee from 
Jerusalem were soon able to confirm the evil reports by 
their personal testimony, for they actually saw him 
and his disciples walking through the wheat fields on 
the Sabbath and plucking the ears of wheat to satisfy 
their hunger, and they said unto him, " Why do thy 
disciples on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? 99 
And he said unto them, " The Sabbath was made for 
man and not man for the Sabbath. If ye had known 
what this meaneth, God desires mercy and not sacrifice, 
ye would not have condemned the guiltless." The com- 
mittee was silenced, but not satisfied. They followed 
him when he entered into the synagogue, and waited 
for new evidence that they might accuse him and they 
had not long to wait. " There was a man there who 
had a withered hand and Jesus said unto the man, 
Stand up. And then he said unto them, Is it lawful 
to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do evil? to save 
life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And 
when he had looked round about on them with anger, 
being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he 
saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And 
he stretched it forth: and his hand was restored whole 
as the other." Perhaps the Pharisees thought that the 
man's ailment was small and the cure natural. At 
any rate their hostility was not diminished but in- 
creased by what they had seen and heard, for the 
record says: "Then the Pharisees went forth and 
straightway took counsel with the Herodians, how they 
might destroy him." 

We live in a time of great religious liberty, and of 
irreligious indifference and laxity, and can therefore 
hardly understand how these Scribes and Pharisees, 
grave and reverend and conscientious rulers of the 



THE WORK OF JESUS 259 



church and teachers of the people, should think that 
Jesus had done anything so wicked that he ought to 
be put to death. Yet we must remember that the Sab- 
bath was the very centre and bulwark of Judaism, and 
that the conduct of Jesus seemed to them to assail and 
endanger their whole system of doctrine and manner of 
life. Therefore, they judged it necessary to resort 
to extreme measures, and for these they easily found 
both authority and precedent. The law of Moses as 
recorded in the thirty-first chapter of Exodus is stern 
and explicit. It reads as follows: "Six days may 
work be done ; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, 
holy to the Lord; whosoever doeth any work on the 
Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." More- 
over this stern law had been carried out to the letter 
by the authority of Moses himself. In the 15th chap- 
ter of Numbers it is said : " While the children of 
Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that 
gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that 
found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses 
and Aaron and unto all the congregation. And they 
put him in ward, because it was not declared what 
should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, 
The man shall surely be put to death: all the congre- 
gation shall stone him with stones without the camp. 
And all the congregation brought him without the 
camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died." 

Perhaps the extreme rigor of the ancient law had 
been relaxed and it was no longer customary to inflict 
capital punishment for Sabbath breaking. Perhaps 
when the Pharisees consulted together they concluded 
that, though Jesus had defied their authority and 
trampled upon their traditions, they had not a legal 
case upon which it would be wise to prosecute him; so 



260 THE WORK OF JESUS 



they proceeded against him indirectly by attempting 
to break down his influence. They let it be known 
that in their judgment he was a bad man who had 
leagued himself with Beelzebub and cast out devils by 
the power of the prince of devils. 

Jesus had been angry at his critics when they had 
kept silence and refused to admit that to heal a man 
even on the Sabbath was a good work, but now that 
they expressly called his cures the work of Satan, his 
anger was terrible in its intensity. He sent for these 
learned doctors of the law, and said to them indig- 
nantly, 44 How can Satan cast out Satan? If a King- 
dom be divided against itself that Kingdom cannot 
stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, he can- 
not stand, but hath an end." Then disdaining further 
argument he told them in burning and awful words 
that it was their own wickedness that made them im- 
pute wickedness to him. You brood of vipers, how 
can you, being evil, speak good things? for out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Your 
speaking ill of me may be forgiven, but it is a dread- 
ful and unpardonable thing for you to call good evil 
and to speak against the holiness of God. 

The Pharisees were not convinced, were not even 
silenced by the words of Jesus. They answered, per- 
haps with a sneer at his pretensions, perhaps with a 
hope that God had indeed sent another prophet like 
Moses, Master show us a sign from heaven. Do some 
really supernatural act and we will believe on you. 
Jesus refused the test and told them that the mere ask- 
ing for it showed their unbelief, their spiritual blind- 
ness and their wickedness. He declared, A wicked and 
apostate generation asketh for a sign, but there shall 
no sign be given it, 



THE WORK OF JESUS 261 



There was an irreconcilable conflict between them. 
They could not rise above the letter of the law to his 
spiritual conception of religion. He could not and 
would not adopt such methods and confine his work 
within such limits as they approved. 

The thought may cross our minds, Would it not 
have been better if Jesus had yielded the point in re- 
gard to the conventional observance of the Sabbath, 
if in general his attitude had been more politic and 
conciliatory? Doubtless Jesus was tempted to com- 
promise in the presence of these learned and imposing 
dignitaries of the church perhaps even more strongly 
than he had been tempted in the wilderness when alone ; 
but nevertheless he resolutely refused to yield his own 
conscience to the conscience of others, no matter what 
their numbers or their power, or what the greatness or 
antiquity of the authority they represented. The re- 
sult of his courage and fidelity was the ever-increasing 
clearness of his views of truth and righteousness. 

When Jesus said to his followers, " If thine eye be 
single, thy whole body shall be full of light," he spoke 
from his own experience. He had found, as every- 
body may find, that to do one's duty however humble 
or disagreeable that duty may be, is the indispensable 
condition of further spiritual revelation and advance. 
It was because he was pure in heart that he saw God. 
It is because he did his own duty so faithfully that he 
was able to teach others so clearly. 

Jesus founded a new religion, the religion of love 
and duty. He taught men to love and trust God as a 
heavenly Father, and to regard all their fellow men as 
brothers. He said to men who were burdened by the 
heavy exactions of the priesthood and the minute and 
rigid rules of the Scribes, people who were discouraged 



262 THE WORK OF JESUS 



and fearful because of the terrors of the law, to all 
people who desired to do their duty and did not know 
how, Jesus said, " Come unto me and I will give you 
rest." The pity of Jesus despaired of nobody, and re- 
jected nobody; but while he restored publicans and sin- 
ners and outcasts to hope and virtue, he held up an ideal 
for the good and pure beyond anything that the world 
had previously known. The great law of Jesus, of 
which the significance is not yet half learned is, He 
that would be greatest among you let him be the serv- 
ant of all. The greatness of Jesus himself is that he 
came not to be ministered unto but to minister. He 
came at a crisis of human need, when a great part of 
the world had outgrown polytheism and was ready for 
the simpler and purer faith, and his genius and cour- 
age transformed Judaism into Christianity, the re- 
ligion of a single nation into the religion of many 
nations, a religion which appears to be going steadily 
forward to the conquest of the world. 

No one else ever possessed in equal degree both the 
opportunity and the power and the purpose to ren- 
der service; but everybody has some opportunity and 
some power, and never before in the world's history 
were there so many who had the purpose to serve as 
to-day. In the light of nineteen centuries of Chris- 
tian progress we know Jesus far better than most of 
his contemporaries knew him, and we may fittingly 
close this Christmas tribute of loyalty and affection 
with some of Whittier's wise and beautiful words : 

" I ponder o'er the sacred word, 
I read the record of our Lord! 
And, weak and troubled, envy them 
Who touched his seamless garment's hem; — 



THE WORK OF JESUS 



Who saw the tears of love he wept 

Above the grave where Lazarus slept; 

And heard, amid the shadows dim 

Of Olivet, his evening hymn. 

* * * 

Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight. 
Through present wrong, the eternal right; 
And, step by step, since time began, 
I see the steady gain of man ; 

That all of good the past hath had 
Remains to make our own time glad, — 
Our common daily life divine, 
And every land a Palestine. 

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore ; 
God's love and blessing then and there. 
Are now and here and everywhere." 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



The world is full of mystery. At times it seems all 
goodness and beauty. When we are ourselves young 
and healthy, prosperous and happy, when the skies are 
blue and the grass green, when the flowers are bloom- 
ing and the birds are singing, when we are full of life 
and hope, it seems easy and natural to say with the 
Psalmist, " The Lord is good to all and his tender 
mercies are all over his works," or to sing with the 
optimistic Browning: 

" The year's at the spring, 
The day's at the morn, 
The morning's at seven, 
The hillside's dewpearled, 
The snail's on the thorn, 
The lark's on the wing, 
God's in his heaven; 
All's right with the world." 

But when the sky is overcast, when the rain falls for 
days, when there is a blight upon the crops, when sick- 
ness prevails in the community, when we ourselves have 
some painful and apparently incurable malady, when 
sight grows dim and hearing dull, when strength fails 
and ambition dies, it is sometimes the case that hope 
deferred makes the heart sick and the shadows of doubt 
eclipse for the time being the sun of faith. It may 
be that then our mood becomes like that of the man 
who wrote : " I looked on all the works that my hands 
had wrought and on the labor that I had labored to 
do: and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, 
and there was no profit under the sun." 

264 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 265 



Or it may be that at times, like the tender-hearted 
Goldsmith, we sit in sorrow for mankind. We see that 
the great majority of men even in the most favored 
and progressive countries live lives of humble drudgery, 
spending almost all their energies in securing food 
and clothing and never having leisure or opportunity 
to cultivate art or science or literature. And then per- 
haps our pity grows deeper and sadder as we think of 
the swarming millions of Chinese and Hindus whose 
ignorance is even more dense and whose mode of life 
is still more dreary and monotonous, vast numbers of 
whom, earning but a few cents a day, live in bare and 
filthy hovels in a state of apathy and semi-starvation. 

We may be told that such views of India and China 
are morbid and fanciful and that Oriental races live 
simple and natural lives and suffer less than we do 
under the more complicated problems of our more arti- 
ficial civilization. There may be a partial truth in 
this view, and certainly no one ought to darken the 
actual shadows of life still further by merely imag- 
inary evils. Yet the fact remains that from every 
country and every epoch comes the complaint that hu- 
man life is full of pain, trouble and disappointment, 
and that it would be unbearable were it not that there is 
in man also an inextinguishable hope of a better con- 
dition of things in the future. Hebrew poetry repre- 
sents this thought under the figure of a fall and a re- 
demption. Man has eaten of the fruit of forbidden 
knowledge and has been driven forth from his Para- 
dise, but a greater man will in the fulness of time, 

" Restore us and regain the blissful seat." 

The Greek fable is that Pandora, the first woman, 
overcome by curiosity opened a forbidden casket and 



266 FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



suddenly all diseases of body and mind began to issue 
from it. Pandora in alarm at their hideous shapes 
put on the lid again in haste ; but alas ! she was al- 
ready too late. The diseases had gone forth, but the 
gods in pity saved man from utter wretchedness by 
hope. Modern English proverbial philosophy in its 
rough and audacious way expresses the same idea. A 
rude popular rhyme summarizes human life as follows: 

" Our ingress is naked and bare, 
Our progress is trouble and care, 
Our egress is no one knows where ; 
If we do well here, we shall do well there." 

Now, as of old, we are saved by hope. Among the 
young and happy hope is unthinking and instinctive, 
among the aged and disappointed, hope is meditative 
and philosophic. Even philosophic hope varies in its 
expression from age to age. Paradise Lost was writ- 
ten to " justify the ways of God to man " and it 
does so by Scripture and theology. In the next cen- 
tury Pope wrote his Essay on Man in which, slightly, 
varying Milton's phrase, he declares his purpose to 
" vindicate the ways of God to man." But the spirit 
of the age had changed and the nature of his argu- 
ment is totally unlike that of his predecessor. Pope 
does not draw upon the Bible or upon the dogmas of 
the church, but gives compact and epigrammatic ex- 
pression to the philosophical optimism current in his 
day. The great theodicy of the nineteenth century is 
Tennyson's In Memoriam, and this again reflects the 
changed attitude of human thought. In Memo- 
riam does not draw from Hebrew Scripture like 
Paradise Lost, nor does it attempt close and philo- 
sophic argument like the Essay on Man, but it makes 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 267 



a strong and passionate appeal to the primary intui- 
tions of the soul. 

Not only does every age vary the grounds of its 
hope, but every thoughtful man has some sources of 
strength that have grown out of his own life and ex- 
perience, so that, in the words of the Buddhist philoso- 
phy, 6 6 There are as many paths of life as there are 
men and women." It was wisely said of old, " The 
heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger inter- 
meddleth not with its joy." I shall not try to speak 
of any of the private and personal attestations by 
which God's Holy Spirit illuminates and comforts the 
hearts of his praying and believing children. In re- 
gard to these all that one can say is, " O taste and see 
that the Lord is gracious, blessed is the man that 
trusteth in him." These subjective experiences can- 
not be transferred. Let us therefore rather appeal to 
the great general facts which are familiar to us all. 

Everybody feels the tranquilizing and elevating 
effects of the broad aspects of nature. It calms our 
minds to look upon the infinite spaces of the sky. To 
all men as to the ancient Psalmist the heavens are full 
of strength and beauty. One knows not which to ad- 
mire the most, the glory of the day or the glory of the 
night, the soft blue sky and white sailing clouds that 
seem to smile upon us and as it were melt in the soul, 
or the silent and innumerable stars that reveal the 
transcendent vastness of the creation and the incon- 
ceivable power of the Creator. As we look at Nature 
as a whole, every wrinkle in the face of the mighty 
mother disappears and her expression becames one of 
perfect benignity. The withered tree, the stagnant 
pool, the shapeless rock no longer seem discordant or 
offensive, but they blend imperceptibly and harmoni- 



268 FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



ously into the general effect and become elements of a 
deeper and richer beauty. 

" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue." 

This effect of beauty in the totality of things is not 
an illusion and a cheat, but a prophecy of the perfec- 
tion we shall ultimately find in Nature. When Millet 
the painter was discouraged by poverty, sickness and 
disappointment, he drew fresh courage from the inex- 
haustible fulness and the untroubled calmness of Na- 
ture. " 1 must go and look at the horizon," was his 
phrase. He used to do so, and always returned full 
of new hopes. So some ancient poet in beautiful words 
says, " 1 will lift up mine eyes unto the hills whence my 
help cometh." Some persons are much more sensitive 
than others to inspirations drawn from the sky, the 
mountain, the ocean, the prairie and the wood; but 
there are none who do not in some degree respond to 
these influences and derive new strength and hope and 
life from the sight of the massiveness of Nature, and 
from the infinity of space. But there is another im- 
mensity as vast, another marvel as mysterious as that 
of space and we call it Time. We can think of every- 
thing else as having a beginning and as at last ceasing 
to be, but stretch our imagination to the utmost and 
we still cannot conceive of a beginning or an end of 
Time. 

The evolutionists tell us a wonderful story of the 
process of creation. They say that the material of 
which the earth is composed was once nothing but fiery, 
vapors and that these gases gathered together and con- 
densed into a globe like the sun, in which for ages seas 
of liquid fire surged to and fro, and tongues of flames 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 269 



shot high into space, and huge volcanoes, like the nos- 
trils of an angry monster, belched forth steam and 
smoke. After thousands and thousands of years, the 
earth gradually grew cooler and in sheltered places 
tiny germs of vegetable life appeared. Then higher 
and higher forms of vegetable and animal life were 
developed, until at last, " mounting through all the 
spires of form," man, the end and crown of earthly 
life, was made. 

Man moralizes about himself and about the world 
in which he lives. He sees that the generations of 
men follow each other like the leaves of the forest. 
He sees that the great cities that he rears with so much 
ambition and toil, at last fall into decay and their very 
names perish. He sees that though we speak of the 
hills as everlasting, yet that hour by hour and atom by 
atom they are ground down, and that at last the 
proudest fortress of the snows will be leveled with the 
plain. As the waves of the ocean rise and fall at the 
breath of the wind, so, by the power of the mightier 
spirit which moves through eternity, the waves of 
solid earth rise and fall and the mountain sinks and 
the valley is exalted. Well did the ancient Psalmist 
say of God, " A thousand years in thy sight are but 
as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the 
night. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the 
earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. 
They shalt perish but thou shalt endure: yea, all of 
them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture thou 
shalt change them and they shall be changed : but thou 
art the same and thy years shall have no end." 

We are tranquilized and uplifted by the infinity of 
space. May we not, in like manner, be tranquilized 
and uplifted by the eternity of Time. What God 



270 FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



takes so much time to do must surely be something 
supremely worth doing. Some ancient Jewish rabbi 
had a quaint fancy that God spent three hours every 
day in the study of the Mosaic law, which is only an 
allegorical way of saying that God as a moral being, 
like any other moral being, is always governed by the 
law of righteousness. Just as the Greeks placed 
Themis or Law above the arbitrary will of Zeus, so 
the Jews placed righteousness above the arbitrary will 
of Jahveh. Daring to think in this way, that there is 
a standard of duty by which all moral beings alike 
from the highest to the lowest are governed, what are 
its requirements? Jesus tells us. He says, "Be ye 
therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is per- 
fect." We instinctively and universally condemn the 
man who slights his work and does not do it to the 
best of his power and opportunity. As we condemn 
the man who buries his talent in the earth and hides 
his light under a bushel, who utterly despises his op- 
portunity and disregards his duty, so we condemn with 
little less severity the man who having great powers 
and opportunities accomplishes but little with them. 
We say that it is the duty of men of genius to take 
great pains and spend much time in order to make 
their works as perfect as possible. The gifted painter 
must not put us off with a hurried daub, but if he 
wishes the high and permanent approbation of man- 
kind, he must choose his design with care, must draw 
his outlines with precision, and must by patient study 
and repeated endeavor secure the best grouping of 
his figures and the best effects of light and color. 
Every man, whether architect, artist, poet, musician, 
scholar, inventor or man of science, to whom we give 
the title of great, is one who has had before him a 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM Til 



great ideal and has toiled patiently in the effort to 
realize that ideal. Surely this law applies to the Mas- 
ter Workman of all, to the Arch-architect who built 
the universe, to the Mathematician who prescribed 
their orbits to the planets, to the Painter who painted 
the blue sky and the green and flowery earth, to the 
Sculptor who moulded the bodies of men and beasts, 
to the Teacher who instructs the mind, to the Ruler 
who governs all the earth, to the Father, who loves all 
his children. 

We can but dimly imagine why it is that the om- 
nipotent God has chosen to take almost infinite time in 
which to work out his plans and to bring his universe 
and his creatures to their highest perfection. Yet, if 
a better result is attained by a long time and a slow 
process than could be gained by an immediate act of 
power, is it not, speaking reverently, the duty of God 
to use that slow process and attain that better result 
rather than to use a shorter method and accomplish a 
less perfect work? 

Let us assume that the old myth of the creation of 
Adam might possibly be true. Supposing that God 
should by an act of creative power in one moment 
make a being of the full stature of a man and with 
every appearance of adult age, it is nevertheless true 
that such a being would not have and could not have 
all the qualities of an ordinary man. It is not in the 
power of omnipotence to make a man thirty years old 
in a moment, for the terms of the statement contradict 
each other, and a being thirty years old cannot be made 
in less than thirty years. In the same way it is incon- 
ceivable that any sort of growth, maturity or expe- 
rience should be the result of a single and immediate 
act, for the very words growth, maturity and expe- 



272 FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



rience imply gradual processes and the continued lapse 
of time. We may say the same thing of the noble 
virtues of patience and fortitude. The words convey 
the idea of the uncomplaining, long-continued, stead- 
fast endurance of suffering. 

Patience and fortitude are among the essentials of 
a complete and noble character, and if patience and 
fortitude can be exhibited only through the lapse of 
time, we see at least in part the reason why God in his 
wisdom and goodness has taken almost infinite time in 
making the world and in developing its inhabitants. 
Is it not a part of the perfection of the divine char- 
acter to exercise patience in his own work? Is it not 
a mark of his goodness that he gives to us in the slow 
processes of nature such an example of unwearied self- 
restraint ? 

If God himself sets before us such a marvelous ex- 
ample of patience, is it not wisdom and duty for us 
to seek to acquire this virtue? We shrink from suf- 
fering and we grow weary of disappointment and 
delay, and yet in our best moments can we not all 
sympathize with Paul who suffered as few other men 
have done, yet amid all his afflictions and persecutions 
declared : " We glory in tribulations also ; knowing 
that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, ex- 
perience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not 
ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in 
our hearts by the holy spirit given unto us." Who 
that has any experience of the love of God in his heart 
or any intelligent view of the wisdom of God in the 
processes of Nature, would not rather submit to any 
discipline however painful or protracted that God 
appoints, than escape, if it were possible, from that 
discipline, and by so doing lose its benefits? 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 273 

The child of God may say: 

" I know God leadeth me aright, 
And though I cannot see, 
To walk with him in darkest night 
Shall not seem hard to me. 

I walk with him as a little child. 
Whom his father strong and good 

Takes with him o'er a mountain wild 
Or through a tangled wood; 

I reck not what the dangers be 

And have no strange alarm, 
My only thought — He leadeth me, 

My perfect trust — his arm." 

Without a period of suspense the virtue of faith 
would be impossible. Yet there is a caution necessary 
here. Faith must not be allowed to degenerate into 
fatalism. It is not wise to believe the Persian poet 
who says: 

" We are but pieces in the game he plays 
Upon his checkerboard of nights and days, 
Hither and thither moves and checks and slays, 
And back again into the closet lays." 

In all ages there have been those who looking at the 

transcendent greatness of the forces of Nature and at 

the feebleness of man have said that Destiny ordained 

all events and that it was all in vain for man to strive 

against its decrees. So the Greek poets represented 

Clotho spinning the thread of human life, Lachesis as 

carefully measuring its length and Atropos as at the 

appointed moment deaf to all entreaties, cutting with 

fatal shears the thin-spun cord. The religion of 

Mohammed is called Islam or resignation, and its 
II— 18 



274 FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 



fundamental principle is entire submission to the will 
of God. Accordingly the faithful Mohammedan goes 
into battle with stolid recklessness. He believes that 
if his time to die has not come, no sword or bullet can 
kill him, and that if his death has been appointed, no 
retreat or cowardice on his part can avert the divine 
decree. It is the same in the case of pestilence. Medi- 
cine and sanitation are neglected, and life and death 
are submitted to the will of God. A popular religious 
philosophy in our own day seems to an outsider to 
embody the same fatalistic principle. It refuses the 
use of material remedies in the case of sickness, and 
appeals only and directly to the infinite goodness and 
infinite power of God for healing. The theory is fas- 
cinating, but not convincing. God is infinitely good 
and infinitely powerful, yet he will let a man die of 
hunger, if he does not use food, he will let him freeze 
to death when it is cold enough if he does not provide 
clothing and shelter and fire, and just as plainly the 
statistics of mortality show that God will let wounded 
soldiers die, if physicians do not use antiseptics, and 
will permit the recovery of a much larger percentage 
of the wounded, if their wounds are dressed on the 
most approved medical principles. The argument 
may be extended from these obvious and undeniable 
cases to very many other injuries and diseases. There 
are very few human ailments that cannot be relieved 
or entirely cured by the use of the appropriate means. 
If, as is often the case, the malady arises from a 
wrong condition of the mind, the affections of the 
will, the most effectual and indeed the only remedy is 
to enlighten the dark mind, to purify the corrupt 
heart and to strengthen the weak will by faith and 
hope. But if the evil arises from a physical cause, 



FAITH VERSUS FATALISM 275 



it must be cured by a physical remedy. A man suf- 
fering with a congestive chill needs stimulating 
warmth. One who is burning with fever needs cooling 
applications. Both alike should bless God that he 
enables man at any time or in any place according 
to his need to secure the invigorating cold of winter 
by the use of ice or stimulating power of the tropic 
sun as it is stored up in fruits and medicinal herbs. 

Rational faith teaches us to do for ourselves all that 
we can and to trust God in all cases that are beyond 
our control. The spirit that made Puritanism great 
is in the words of Cromwell to his soldiers, " Trust in 
God and keep your powder dry." Even Mohammed 
with native good sense rebuked the extravagant fatal- 
ism of his followers, and when one of his traveling 
companions, thinking to exhibit special faith and 
piety said, " I will not tether my camel to-night but 
leave it to the care of God," Mohammed said to him, 
" Not so, trust in God but nevertheless tie your 
camel." So Jesus said to men not merely, 46 Ask and 
ye shall receive," but added also, " seek and ye shall 
find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you." 
After we have ourselves used our powers to the ut- 
most, then onty have we a right to cast our burden 
upon the Lord and feel sure that he will sustain us. 

There is nothing in rational faith to exempt a man 
from responsibility for his own conduct. In all ages 
and nations it has been recognized that in the long run 
men get their just deserts. The ancient Greeks ex- 
pressed it by saying that Nemesis had leaden feet but 
iron hands, and many modern nations have borrowed 
from Germany the powerful figure which declares: 

** Though the mills of God grind slowly 
Yet they grind exceeding small; 



276 FAITPI VERSUS FATALISM 



Though with patience he stands waiting, 
With exactness grinds he all." 

And Hebrew Scripture in language still more im- 
pressive, because based upon a natural phenomenon 
familiar to all men, declares that Whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap. Those who sow the 
wind will reap the whirlwind. Those who sow unto 
the flesh, will of the flesh reap only corruption. Those 
who by patient continuance in well doing seek for 
God's favor will reap everlasting life and full compen- 
sation for all their trials and sufferings, and find that 
their light afflictions which are but for a moment have 
worked for them a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory. 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



God speaks to us with more voices than we can count 
up. To call attention this morning to only seven of 
them is a purely arbitrary limitation, due in part to 
the season of the year, in part to the place in which 
we live, which is remote alike from the mountains and 
the sea, and in part to the fact that this is Flower 
Sunday and a baptismal service. 

In the 148th psalm the sun and the moon, the winds, 
the rivers and the mountains, the birds and the beasts 
are called upon to praise God. They praise God 
by showing how wonderful his works are and as they 
praise God they also speak to men. The heavens 
declare the glory of God. The sky with its beau- 
tiful clouds by day and its mysterious stars by 
night is like a great picture gallery open all the time 
for anybody no matter how poor he may be to look 
at. Some people do not think much about the beauty 
of the sky. William Wordsworth tells us of a man of 
this sort who used to live out of doors a great deal 
and was obliged to see the sky and yet did not enjoy 
its beauty or feel its power. He says of this man: 

" At noon when at the forest's edge 
He lay beneath the branches high, 
The soft, blue sky did never melt 
Into his soul, he never felt 
The witchery of the soft, blue sky." 

Perhaps the man got far more out of the sight of 
the blue sky than the poet supposed or than he himself 
was aware of. 

277 



278 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



Beautiful as the blue sky is, how glad we are that 
it has the additional beauty of the white clouds. Not 
even the snow of winter seems quite so white as the 
clouds of summer as they float along the face of the 
sky, or sit, it may be for many hours, enthroned in 
the zenith of the heavens. And how magnificent it is 
when the great masses of white are heaped upon each 
other until they form mountain ranges loftier and 
more majestic than any upon the surface of the earth. 
We do not need to travel to distant countries to see 
these great sights for all the pomp and splendor of 
the summer sky are seen as well here as anywhere. 

When we turn from the sky to the earth, we find the 
green of the landscape as wonderful and as beautiful 
as the blue sky and the white clouds. How green are 
the trees in " the leafy month of June! 99 How green 
are the fields of growing grain 1 and how green are all 
the lawns and pastures ! Chaucer spoke of the grass 
in his quaint old-fashioned English as: "the smale, 
softe, sweete grass 99 and John Ruskin, the most minute 
and loving of all observers of Nature says this about 
the grass : " Gather a single blade of grass and ex- 
amine for a minute its narrow sword-shaped strip of 
fluted green. Nothing, as it seems, there of notable 
goodness or beauty. A very little strength, a very 
little tallness, and a few long lines, meeting in a blunt, 
unfinished point — Yet consider what we owe to the 
covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, 
by the companies of those soft and countless and 
peaceful spears. The fields! — the joy of herds and 
flocks, soft slopes, crisp lawns, waves of everlasting 
green rolling silently into the shadow of the forest 
and up the sides of the hill," * 

* Abridged, 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 279 



God gives us flowers as well as grass, and all poets 
and painters and good and wise people love flowers. 
Somebody has called flowers the smiles of God. There 
are foolish people who don't care much for flowers 
and they don't learn much about them ; but Jesus, the 
best and greatest of teachers, loved flowers very much 
and when he wanted to teach his disciples to have faith 
in God's goodness and care, he said to them : " Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 
not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you that 
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of 
the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the 
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
faith? " Mary Howitt, a good woman belonging to 
the Society of Friends, wrote a poem on The Use of 
Flowers which follows the same line of thought; she 
says : 

" God might have made the earth bring forth 
Enough for great and small, 
The oak tree and the cedar tree, 
Without a flower at all. 
We might have had enough, enough, 
For every want of ours 
For luxury, medicine, and toil, 
And yet have had no flowers. 

Our outward man requires them not, — 

Then wherefore had they birth? 

To minister delight to man, 

To beautify the earth; 

To comfort man, — to whisper hope, 

Whene'er his faith is dim, 

For who so careth for the flowers 

Will care much more for him/' 



280 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



But God makes the flowers grow for himself as well 
as for us, for they grow in places uninhabited and 
rarely or never visited by man. As the poet Gray said : 

" Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

The flowers not only grow in the desert but they 
actually grow at the bottom of the sea. We live a 
long way from the sea here and if we have ever seen 
any specimens of seaweed they were dried and faded 
and perhaps they did not seem very attractive, but 
when they are living and in blossom they are almost 
as beautiful as the flowers on the land and the fishes 
dart from seaweed to seaweed just as we see the birds 
and butterflies flit from flower to flower. A poet has 
written of them: 

" Call us not weeds, we are flowers of the sea, 
For lovely and bright and gay-tinted are we; 
We are quite independent of sunshine and showers, 
Then call us not weeds, we are ocean's gay flowers." 

All the poets and wise men have said something 
about the flowers; but the flowers are more wonderful 
and beautiful than all the words that have been said in 
praise of them. Wordsworth said that flowers filled 
him with thoughts too deep for tears and Tennyson 
wrote : 

" Flower in the crannied wall 
I pluck you out of the crannies — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

A good and wise man who lived long ago and whose 
name we do not know wrote, " O Lord, great and won- 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 281 



derful are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them 
all. The earth is full of thy goodness." 

We cannot count up a half or a quarter of the good 
things there are in this " great wide wonderful world 
with the wonderful water around it curled," but what- 
ever else we forget to speak of we must not forget the 
trees. How graceful and noble they are and how 
useful! It is not surprising that in old times men 
used to worship trees and to listen to the rustle of their 
leaves as to the voice of God; for trees are large and 
strong, and though every winter they seem to die, yet 
they revive again every spring and live for several 
hundred and even, we are told, for thousands of years. 

In hot countries the most wonderful tree is the palm. 
The palm is tall and straight and beautiful and fruit- 
ful and useful. The cocoanut palm supplies nearly 
all the necessaries of life. Our Quaker poet Whittier 
has a poem about the palm in which he speaks of a 
wonderful ship and cargo. 

" A ship whose keel is of palm beneath, 
Whose ribs of palm have a palm bark sheath, 
And a rudder of palm it steereth with. 

Branches of palm are its spars and rails, 

Fibers of palm are its woven sails, 

And the rope is of palm that idly trails ! 

What does the good ship bear so well? 
The cocoanut with its stony shell, 
And the milky sap of its inner cell. 

And the captain sits on a palm mat soft, 
From a goblet of palm his drink is quaffed, 
And a palm thatch shields from the sun aloft. 



282 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



His dress is woven of palmy strands, 

And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands, 

Traced with the Prophet's wise commands. 

The turban folded about his head 

Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid, 

And the fan that cools him of palm was made. 

Of threads of palm was the carpet spun 
Whereon he kneels when the day is done; 
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one. 

To him the palm is a gift divine, 
Wherein all uses of man combine, — 
House and raiment and food and wine! 

Allah il Allah! he sings his psalm, 
On the Indian seas by the isles of balm; 
' Thanks be to Allah, who gives the palm ! ' " 

The palm tree grows in the tropics and is the great 
blessing of Nature to those who dwell in the hot coun- 
tries. But God's bounty is just as great to those who 
live in the cold and icy North as to those whose homes 
are in the lands of perpetual sunshine, and the men of 
Europe and North America owe as much to the pine 
as the men of Asia and Africa to the palm. 

The lumbermen of Maine who cut down the pine 
trees in the great forests are a sturdy and stalwart set 
of men. Swinging the ax all day develops their mus- 
cles and sends the blood tingling and coursing through 
their veins and while their lungs are expanded by exer- 
cise to their utmost capacity, they drink in great 
draughts of the pure and bracing air of winter and so 
grow vigorous in body and energetic and courageous 
in soul. 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 283 



Ralph Waldo Emerson loved to watch these men 
with a few swift and dexterous strokes fell the big 
trees and he wrote a poem about the forests and the 
foresters in which he makes the pine tree say: 

" Come to me, 
Quoth the pine tree, 
I am the giver of honor. 

* * * 

He is great who can live by me. 

* * * 

Who liveth by the ragged pine — 
Foundeth a heroic line. 

* * * 

What prizes the town and the tower? 
Only what the pine tree yields; 
Sinew that subdued the fields; 

* * * 

The boy in whose cheek the rose-leaf blush- 
eth, 

In whose feet the lion rusheth, 

Iron arms and iron mould, 

That know not fear, fatigue or cold. 

I give my rafters to his boat, 
My billets to his boiler's throat, 
And I will swim the ancient sea, 
To float my child to victory, 
And grant to dwellers with the pine 
Dominion o'er the palm and vine." 

The forest and the mountain are Nature's great 
sanitariums in which tired men and women may recu- 
perate after the strain of life in crowded and noisy 
cities. James Russell Lowell writing in the New Eng- 
land dialect says: 



284 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



There's times when I'm onsocial as a stone 
And sort o' suffocate to be alone, 
I'm crowded just to think that folks are nigh, 
And can't bear nothing closer than the sky." 

and in more classic, but hardly more beautiful, Eng- 
lish he writes: 

" Out of my study, the scholar thrown off, 
Nature holds up her shield 'gainst the sneer and the 
scoff : 

The landscape, forever consoling and kind, 
Pours her wine and her oil on the smarts of the 
mind." 

When Jesus was worn out with teaching the people 
and healing the sick and especially when he was sor- 
rowful and discouraged because of the opposition of 
selfish and wicked men, he used to go to some desert 
place apart where he could look at the trees and the 
flowers and the sky and where under the influence of 
the majesty and beauty of Nature his faith was 
strengthened and he could commune with God more 
perfectly. It was upon the Mount of Olives and under 
the shadow of the olive trees that he prayed, " Father, 
if it be possible let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless 
not as I will but as thou wilt." We do not know in 
what manner God communicated strength to Jesus for 
his martyrdom. In general we know that God gives 
us his blessings indirectly through the forces of Na- 
ture and our own minds. When we look up at the silent 
stars and are filled with wonder and love and our hearts 
are calmed and strengthened and we return to our du- 
ties with renewed patience and courage, we have re- 
ceived a message from God just as much as if God had 
spoken directly to our hearts. 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 285 



God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." 

He chooses weak things to confound the mighty, 
and things that are not to bring to naught things that 
are. Yet while God's power is infinite and he works 
in whatever way his infinite wisdom sees is best, yet I 
think it is wisdom on our part to learn as much as we 
can about the material and secondary agents by which 
God influences our minds and bodies. Jesus received 
from God the strength that enabled him to conquer 
fear and pain and death; but it is reasonable and rev- 
erent to believe that as he prayed upon the Mount of 
Olives, part of that strength was communicated to him 
directly through the holy calm of night, through the 
solemn grandeur of the sky, and through the familiar 
forms of the trees amid which he loved to walk. Sid- 
ney Lanier has expressed this thought in a poem as 
reverent in spirit as it is profound in insight. In his 
Ballad of Trees and the Master, he says : 

" Into the woods my Master went, 
Clean forspent, forspent, 
Into the woods my Master came 
Forspent with love and shame. 
But the olives they were not blind to him ; 
The little gray leaves were kind to him; 
The thorn tree had a mind to him 
When into the woods he came. 

Out of the woods my Master went, 

And he was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When Death and Shame would woo him last, 

From under the trees they drew him last; 

'Twas on a tree they slew him last, 

When out of the woods he came." 



286 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



God speaks to us with a thousand, yes, with ten 
thousand and ten thousand thousand voices. But this 
morning we are thinking of only seven of God's voices 
and we have now counted five, the blue sky, the clouds, 
the grass, the flowers and the trees. 

Perhaps the children may think that the next one 
is more really a voice than any of the others, for the 
next one is the birds. " Birds taught man his first 
note of music and gave him his first dream of liberty. 
They are the greatest optimists in the world, teaching 
always cheer and hope. They croak no melancholy 
dirges, but sing only songs of love and joy and praise. 
They bring into the heart of man naught but bright- 
ness and take from it naught but gloom — They whis- 
per to the child his first message from the Infinite, and 
carol to old age of glories beyond the vale. From 
dawn to night, from birth to death, they flood our 
lives with melody and cheer it with inspiration." 

The references in the Bible to birds are many and 
beautiful. In Palestine the roofs of the houses are 
flat and people often use them as a place of deposit 
for worn out and worthless articles. Old rugs and 
carpets, old clothes and old pots and pans are some- 
times thrown there in a heap and sometimes the doves 
come and make their nests amid these heaps of rubbish. 
But when they leave these lowly resting places and 
fly into the air, they look as beautiful as though they 
were angels and had just descended from heaven. The 
birds wheel and turn in the sunlight and at one mo- 
ment look as white as silver and at another as yellow 
as gold. The writer of the 68th psalm had noticed 
this and to comfort poor people who were discouraged 
with their daily household drudgery, he compares them 
to the doves flying from the house tops to the sky 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD m 



and says : " Though ye have lain among the pots, yet 
shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver 
and her feathers with yellow gold." And another an- 
cient Hebrew poet, watching how swiftly and easily 
the beautiful birds flew through the air, uttered the 
famous wish, " O that I had wings like a dove, then 
would I fly away and be at rest ! " 

Men cannot fly like doves but they have learned to 
use them to carry their messages. Men take advan- 
tage of the mother bird's love and tie the letter to the 
neck of a bird whose young ones are far away. When 
the bird is let go the first thing it does is to rise 
high in the air, so that it may the better see its way 
and so that nothing may obstruct its course and then 
it flies swiftly and straight to its little ones in the 
nest. One of the most graceful and spiritual of the 
poems of Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, is based on 
this beautiful instinct of the carrier pigeon. He 
says : 

" The bird let loose in eastern skies, 

When hastening fondly home, 
Ne'er stops to earth her wing, nor flies 

Where idle warblers roam ; 
But high she shoots through air and light, 

Above all low delay, 
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 

Nor shadow dims her way. 
So grant me, God, from every care 

And strain of passion free, 
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air 

To hold my course to thee ! 
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay 

My soul as home she springs ; — 
Thy sunshine on her joyful way, 

Thy freedom in her wings! " 



288 SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 



The habits of the skylark have also often been 
used to point a spiritual lesson. The lark is a little, 
plain-looking, brown bird, but it has a clear, sweet, and 
entrancing voice. It does not build its nest in some 
high cleft of the rock or in some tall tree but humbly 
upon the ground among the meadow grass and from 
this lowly spot it rises with strong wings up and up and 
up till it is lost to sight, and there " at heaven's gate," 
as it were, it sings a song of praise that fills all the 
region round. Wordsworth, one of the greatest of 
all the poets of Nature, wrote several beautiful poems 
upon the sky lark. One of them runs thus : 

" Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still! 
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 

A privacy of glorious light is thine, 
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 

Of harmony with instinct more divine; 
Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam, — 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! " 

And now, I think that all the grown people in the 
church know what I shall speak of as the seventh voice 
of God. Parents live their lives over again in their 
children. An old song makes a husband say to his 
wife — 

" When with envy Time transported 
Shall seek to rob us of our joys, 
You'll in your girls again be courted 
And I'll go wooing in my boys." 



SEVEN VOICES OF GOD 289 



And Wordsworth tells us that of all the gifts that 
heaven can offer to declining man, a child does most 
to bring hope and give forward-looking thoughts. 



II— 19 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 



Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called 
the children of God. Matt, v, 9. 

Jesus is the Prince of Peace. According to the 
beautiful poetry of the early church, at his birth 
angels descended from heaven and sang, Glory to 
God in the highest and on earth peace and good-will 
toward men. 

The Romans had a similar tradition. They be- 
lieved that Numa, their second King, and the founder 
of their religion, established the temple of Janus, the 
god of day and the god of beginnings, the god after 
whom our month of January is named, and ordained 
that the gates of the temple of Janus should always 
be shut during the time of peace and open only when 
war existed. According to Roman mythology the 
gates were closed during the whole of the long reign 
of Numa, but alas ! history records that they were not 
again closed for seven hundred years until in the 
reign of Augustus universal peace was once more es- 
tablished. It was at this time that Jesus was born 
and Milton in his Ode on the Nativity thus poetically 
states the fact: 

" No war or battle sound 
Was heard the world around: 

The idle spear and shield were high uphung; 
The hooked chariot stood 
Unstained with hostile blood, 

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 
And kings sat still with awful eye, 
As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was 

by" 

290 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 291 



It is the mission of religion to bring in peace, be- 
cause peace is in itself a virtue and is promotive of 
many other virtues. Yet although peace is one of the 
very greatest of blessings, it is not to be obtained 
save at a price. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, 
" There never was a good war or a bad peace," and 
his words are as true as they are striking, for every 
war is caused by the folly and wickedness of at least 
one of the combatants and very commonly in some 
degree of both of them. 

Yet liberty, truth and justice are dearer than peace 
and it is sometimes a direful necessity to fight for, 
or as the phrase is, to conquer a peace. Jesus him- 
self, who blessed the peacemakers, also declared, I 
came not to send peace upon the earth but a sword, 
meaning by these words that the proclamation of the 
gospel, though meant for peace, would certainly pro- 
voke enmity, resistance and strife. And Paul, the 
greatest of all commentators upon the teachings of 
Jesus, enjoins peace with a qualification, for he says, 
If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, live peaceably 
with all men. Paul implies that it is not always pos- 
sible, and it is not. The righteous is abomination to 
the wicked, and there is between them an irreconcilable 
conflict. It is the tendency of goodness and of wicked- 
ness alike to grow and to become more and more ag- 
gressive and so they must constantly come into col- 
lision until one of them obtains complete ascendency. 

The rule of the gospel is, Be not overcome of evil, 
but overcome evil with good; yet it may sometimes 
be necessary to use force against wicked and unrea- 
sonable men, just as it is necessary sometimes to use 
force against wild animals, poisonous serpents or irri- 
tating insects. Nevertheless, in proportion as society 



292 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 

becomes Christian and truly civilized, it relies less and 
less upon force and more and more upon peaceful 
methods in settling all kinds of quarrels and disputes. 
Contention will only cease when all causes of conten- 
tion are removed, or when all persons become sufficiently 
intelligent and reasonable to settle their differences by 
adjudication. In regard to the contentions of private 
individuals, society has at last, after much difficulty 
and struggle, almost brought this about. Competent 
tribunals have almost put an end to war between indi- 
viduals, and competent tribunals will, when public 
opinion is sufficiently educated, put an end also to 
civil and international wars. In primitive times every 
man's hand was against that of every other man. One 
curious trace of the universal distrust with which 
travelers in primitive times regarded a stranger is 
found in the fact that in Europe men on foot turn 
to the right in passing each other as they meet, whereas 
men on horseback turn to the left. The reason in 
each case is the same, the effort to protect oneself 
from sudden and treacherous attack. Footmen carried 
their shields upon their left arms and their knives in 
their right hands, and so they naturally turned to the 
right in order that each as he passed might be pro- 
tected by his shield. Men on horseback as naturally 
turned to the left, for as each man held his bridle 
in his left hand and had his right hand free to grasp 
his sword, a movement to the left was his instinctive 
position of defense. 

It was a miserable state of continual robbery and 
murder, of perpetual distrust and terror, when each 
man's life and property depended upon his personal 
skill and courage; yet the rude old fighting times had 
their picturesque aspects and now that they are soft- 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 293 



ened by perspective and we are not in personal danger, 
the poet can transfigure them by his imagination and 
sing gaily 

" The good old rule, the simple plan, 
Let each man take who has the power 
And let him keep who can." 

Private warfare still exists among savages of Africa 
and South America, and even in civilized countries 
there are classes of men who have not yet outgrown 
the primitive habits of personal defense and personal 
revenge, and learned to leave the questions of their 
rights and wrongs to the judgment of courts estab- 
lished by the community. But in spite of the existence 
of the Italian vendetta and the Kentucky feud, we 
may say that the world has been effectually educated 
into the practice of settling private differences by 
peaceful instead of by violent methods. 

The world, however, still suffers from time to time 
from international wars; yet even here great progress 
has already been made and there are many hopeful 
indications for the future. 

It is impossible to enumerate, it is impossible for 
the imagination to conceive, all the injuries and hor- 
rors of war. Think what it means to have a single 
life suddenly taken by violence, or to have a single 
healthy man severely wounded and rendered a cripple, 
condemned for the rest of his life to drag a distorted 
body about in weariness and pain. Think what it 
means for a wife to be made a widow and a group of 
young children left to grow up without the help of their 
natural provider and protector. Think what it means 
when a house is burned to the ground, and the simple 
and needful furniture, the few cherished possessions 



294 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 



and sacred heirlooms of a family, are suddenly de- 
stroyed, and the household is turned adrift perhaps to 
sink through discouragement into hopeless pauperism, 
perhaps to become embittered and to take revenge 
upon society by theft and murder. 

Yet these are the ordinary incidents of war and 
must be multiplied by thousands and tens of thousands 
to represent the sufferings caused by a great foreign 
conflict or civil war. 

And this is not all. Think of the mad wastefulness 
and destructiveness of war. If a single family should 
draw its small fund of money from the Savings Bank, 
should sell the piano and pawn the books and strip 
the pictures from the walls and the carpets from the 
floors in order to buy fireworks, and have a great dis- 
play, it would hardly act more foolishly than nations 
sometimes have done in squandering all their accumu- 
lated wealth, and impoverishing the whole people, in 
order to purchase guns and gunpowder for a needless 
war. Yet there have been many such wars, wars of 
merely personal ambition, in which monarchs have 
staked cities and provinces and the welfare of a nation 
as a reckless gambler stakes his whole fortune upon 
the turn of a card. It should always be remembered 
that where there are large appropriations for war 
there are small appropriations for education, and that 
the money that is spent for gunpowder might have 
been spent on public improvements and luxuries, in 
making better streets and parks and houses and schools. 
Samuel Johnson in his sententious manner says : 

" Reason frowns on war's unequal game, 
Where wasted nations raise a single name." 

And Cowper, the evangelical poet, with the righteous 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 295 



indignation which, with all his gentleness, was so 
strong in him, declared: 

" War is a game which were their subjects wise 
Kings would not play at." 

When Longfellow visited the United States Arsenal 
at Springfield, Massachusetts, and saw the glittering 
gun-barrels ranged in order and looking like the pipes 
of a great organ, he wrote, 

" This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling 

Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; 
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing 
Startles the villages with strange alarms. 

" Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, 
When the death angel touches those swift keys ! 
What loud lament and dismal Miserere 

Will mingle with their awful symphonies. 

* * * 

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, 
With such accursed instruments as these, 

Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
And j arrest the celestial harmonies? 

Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 

Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error, 

There were no need of arsenals or forts. 

* * * 

Down the dark future, through long generations, 
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease, 

And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, ' Peace ! ' " 

In presenting the indictment against war the heavy 
and slowly-lifted burden of taxation it imposes upon 



296 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 

future generations must not be forgotten. What a 
misery it is to a mechanic to have a mortgage upon 
his home, or to the farmer to have a mortgage upon 
his farm, the interest of which drains away all his 
savings and condemns him in spite of industry to 
almost hopeless poverty. Yet a great war costing 
hundreds of millions of dollars creates a national debt 
which in the case of most nations hangs like a mill- 
stone upon the neck of every laboring man. Great 
Britain has not yet paid off the huge mountain of debt 
piled upon it by the wars with Napoleon and with the 
United States at the beginning of the last century. 
Thinking of the nation as a great corporation and 
dividing its indebtedness per capita among its stock- 
holders, the people, we may say that every Englishman 
or woman is born in debt more than one hundred 
dollars and a very, very large number of the working 
classes through all their years of hard toil never ac- 
cumulate that amount of property, but live and die 
insolvent. 

Poverty like other words is elastic. There is a pov- 
erty which means the absence of all superfluity, a pov- 
erty which stimulates industry and compels economy, 
a poverty which is the nurse of strength and hardi- 
hood in the body and of courage and virtue in the 
soul, a poverty of plain living and high thinking, a 
poverty such as that in which Martin Luther and 
Abraham Lincoln were reared, a poverty such as Jesus 
himself knew, which he pronounced blessed. 

But there is a more dire and dreadful poverty, a 
poverty that dehumanizes and brutalizes men, a pov- 
erty of dirt and squalor and semi-starvation of the 
body, of ignorance, stupidity and hopelessness for the 
mind, and this kind of poverty is not a blessing but a 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 297 



deep and dreadful curse; though to the honor of God 
and the honor of human nature be it said, that even out 
of the depth of defilement of this poverty, great vir- 
tues sometimes spring. As Emerson grandly says, 
The energy of Nature is never relaxed, and from all 
carrion and foul dirt she still strives to reproduce life 
and beauty. 

But though God in his infinite wisdom and love is 
able to give some gleams of happiness even to the 
most wretched men and to nourish some virtues even 
in the darkest of human habitations, yet it must be 
admitted that extreme and hopeless poverty is one of 
the most prolific causes of bodily disease and of spirit- 
ual depravity, of idiocy, of drunkenness and of crime, 
and one great reason why war is to be held in abhor- 
rence is that it impoverishes a nation, greatly lowers 
the average of education, of comfort and morality. 

In view of all this, it is certainly a most hopeful 
and cheering sign of the world's progress that wars 
are now much less frequent, much shorter and much 
less cruel and destructive than they used to be. There 
are no longer as in the past chronic hostilities between 
nations. There is no longer any such protracted con- 
flict as the hundred years' war between France and 
England or the thirty years' war between the Catholic 
and the Protestant powers of Europe. 

The South African war, which whatever may be 
said of its immediate cause, was a part of a tremendous 
conflict of nations for supremacy in a vast continent, 
lasted only three years, and was attended by compara- 
tively little loss of life. The British losses, including 
not only those killed in actual fighting but all who 
died of exposure, hardship and disease, were in round 
numbers 22,000. Dreadful as is this mortality, it is 



298 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 

as nothing compared with that sustained in the wars 
of antiquity. 

At Cannae, where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 
216 B. C, the Roman historian Livy admits that the 
Roman loss was 48,000 men. The explanation of this 
great difference is to be found in the use of firearms. 
Great guns which hurl a heavy projectile for several 
miles, and rapid fire guns which send a stream of bul- 
lets almost as continuous as the stream of water from 
a fireman's hosepipe, are not nearly so deadly as the 
bows and arrows, the swords and spears of antiquity. 
The reason is that now combatants fight at long range 
and as far as may be under cover, whereas in antiquity 
they fought face to face, hand to hand and foot to 
foot. This sort of struggle roused men to the great- 
est exasperation and fury, so that there was little 
disposition to ask or give quarter and the defeated 
army, being often unable to make good its retreat, was 
almost exterminated. 

In antiquity those combatants whose lives were 
spared were generally sold into slavery. Josephus 
tells us that in the siege and capture of Jerusalem in 
the year 70 A. D. more than a million Jews were slain 
and 100,000 were made slaves; and later Jewish his- 
torians assert that after the revolt of Bar-Cochba 
against the Romans 1,000 towns and villages were laid 
in ashes. 

James K. Hosmer, in his eloquent history of the 
Jews, sums up the horrors of the last war for the 
independence of Palestine by saying : " Palestine was 
utterly devastated ; the land was full of graves ; the 
towns were given over to wolves and hyenas." 

Modern warfare in which the lives and property of 
noncombatants are by civilized nations scrupulously 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 299 



respected, in which the lives of the defeated are spared 
and prisoners are as soon as possible restored to lib- 
erty, often being released upon their own parole, 
modern war with its magnificent medical service and 
its international agreement that hospitals and ambu- 
lances and their attendants who wear the badge of 
the red-cross are exempt from fire or attack, modern 
war with all its humane mitigations, is " a civil 
game 99 compared with the fierce inhumanity of the 
ages before Jesus proclaimed the words: " Blessed are 
the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children 
of God." 

Yet war, like murder, at its best is a thing most 
foul and dreadful and we count those most Christ-like 
who do their utmost to prevent it. 

Abraham Lincoln is the most loved of all our presi- 
dents, chiefly because he was the gentlest, the kindest, 
the most conciliatory and the most peaceful. He did 
his utmost to prevent war between the states and when 
events overpowered him, he strove to end the war as 
soon as possible by magnanimous terms and to bind 
up the nation's wounds. It was also largely to his 
wise and pacific temper that we were not embroiled with 
Great Britain and driven into a new war that would 
have done incalculable injury to both countries and 
been a calamity to the whole world. Queen Victoria 
also deserves credit in this connection, for it is asserted 
that when the Confederate envoys Mason and Slidell 
had been, seized upon a British steamer, and Lord 
Russell, the foreign secretary of the British ministry, 
voicing the nation's angry feelings, had written a very 
peremptory demand upon the United States, she in- 
sisted that the note should be reworded in a more 
moderate tone. It was a noble illustration of the an- 



300 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 

cient proverb: A soft answer turneth away wrath, but 
grievous words stir up anger. 

A still more notable milestone in the world's prog- 
ress from war to peace was the Geneva convention for 
the arbitration of the Alabama claims, which not only 
prevented a disastrous conflict at the time, but by the 
wisdom and moderation of the decision did much to 
establish arbitration as the permanent policy of both 
nations, and of the world. Geneva was the precursor 
of the Hague tribunal, and the court of arbitration 
now sitting may perhaps by the future historian be 
looked upon as the definite termination of the world's 
epoch of war. 

The growth of peace sentiment is due to many 
causes. Every school house by diffusing knowledge 
and refining manners exerts a strong influence for 
public order. The influence of literature is steadily 
exerted in the same direction. Tennyson sums up the 
teaching of all the great modern poets when he dips 
into the future and sees the time when 

" The war drum throbs no longer and the battle flags are 
furl'd 

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 

Tolstoi, Victor Hugo and Zola have all used their 
great powers to show the miseries and brutalities of 
war, and to further the cause of peace. The brush 
of the painter has been hardly less effective than the 
pen of the novelist as a means of popular education, 
and those who have seen the realistic paintings of 
Verestchagin representing the war between Russia and 
Turkey, the South African and the Spanish- American 
wars can never forget their deep impressiveness. 

Every church in which the gospel of Christ is read 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 301 



and expounded is a promoter of peace, and no church 
has done more to impress the teaching of Jesus upon 
society than has the Unitarian church. Channing 
preached many, sermons against war, and, when Sir 
Walter Scott published his great life of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, Channing wrote an elaborate review of it 
which is not only a masterly delineation of character 
and a model of impassioned eloquence but also a most 
impressive statement of the principles of Christianity. 
The view of Channing is that Napoleon was an anach- 
ronism, a man who relied solely upon force in an 
epoch of increasing intelligence and growing kindli- 
ness. Brought up in a military school and familiar 
from childhood with nothing but military life, he was 
ignorant of the highest and best tendencies of the age 
in which he lived, and so, though the greatest of all 
soldiers, he was at last utterly defeated, and fell as 
suddenly and dramatically as he had risen. His policy 
was to make all the schools of France military acad- 
emies and to turn the whole country into an armed 
camp. His vast armaments, his threats and insolence 
and outrages compelled all other countries to ally, 
themselves against him and at last to imprison him 
upon a lonely rock in an unfrequented part of the 
ocean. Napoleon's red and baleful star set at St. 
Helena, and we may well believe that no such other 
star will ever rise to cause equal terror and disaster 
to the nations. 

We may take courage in the hope that the world 
has seen its last great military despot; but the civil- 
ized world has yet before it the great task of reducing 
its armaments to the reasonable dimensions of a police 
force. At present the burden of maintaining the 
enormous armies and navies of Europe is so heavy that 



302 BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 



a cabinet minister of one of the great powers recently 
declared that Europe was " expiring in armor," like 
a mediaeval knight who, though unwounded by the 
sword of an opponent, had sunk to the ground and 
died of exhaustion beneath the weight of his coat of 
mail. The ministers of finance of various countries 
have urged the reduction of armaments and at the 
invitation of the Czar of Russia, an international con- 
gress was convened to consider the subject, and it is 
a curious and interesting illustration how extremes 
meet, that while governments and responsible states* 
men are so earnestly studying the problem of disarma- 
ment, their most severe and revolutionary critics, the 
socialists, are here in accord with them, with French 
socialists in the lead. 

France, the land of Napoleon, has been thought to 
be the most warlike of all countries ; yet under socialist 
teaching thousands of Frenchmen are now admitting 
the wickedness and folly of the military passion. The 
eloquent Jaures calls upon his countrymen to rise 
above the petty provincialism " marked off by the sur- 
veyor's line 99 and " to enter upon the ways that lead 
to self-respect and brotherhood." But French social- 
ists are not alone in the peace crusade. John Graham 
Brooks in his recent noteworthy book, The Social 
Unrest, says : " The collectivist brotherhood, the 
world over, is as one against the desolating waste of 
militarism in all its forms." 

In this imperfect enumeration of the forces mak- 
ing for peace, the influence of the newspapers must 
not be overlooked. The daily newspapers are the 
common school of the adult population. They not 
only give us the news every day, but they give it with 
interpretation and comment, and in spite of the folly 



BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS SOS 



and extravagance of the so-called " yellow " press, our 
newspapers are pioneers of progress and wise guides 
of public opinion. 

Political economists, scientific inventors, novelists, 
poets and painters, schools and churches and news- 
papers, are all potent agencies of education and there- 
fore of peace; but all these must be supplemented by, 
as indeed they all rest upon, the right training of 
the young in the home. Those who by precept and 
example are taught kindness and conciliation in the 
home will grow up to be peacemakers in society. 

The peaceful home is the greatest of agencies for 
creating a peaceful world. Peace must abide in the 
heart before it can manifest itself in the life. Beau- 
tiful is the prayer of the Quaker poet: 

** Drop thy still dews of quietness 
Till all our sorrows cease; 
Take from our souls the strain and stress, 
And let our ordered lives confess 
The beauty of thy peace." 

Peace was the last legacy of Jesus. " Peace," he 
said, " I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. 
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid." 

According to the beautiful words of the book of 
Common Prayer of the Episcopalian Church, God is 
the author of peace and the lover of concord ; and this 
being the character of God it is most fitting that Jesus 
should bless the peacemakers and call them in an es- 
pecial sense the children of God. It is a great bene- 
diction and it is pleasant to think that it rests to-day 
upon more persons than ever before. 



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